


you build your tower (but call me home)

by parchmints



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Cursed Keith, Curses, Fairy Tale Elements, Fluff and Angst, Gargoyle AU, Isolation, Lance is a twin, Light Angst, Lonliness, M/M, Magic, Mutual Pining, Mutual Support, Prince Lance (Voltron), Slow Burn, There's No Tag For That, an au where adashi happily spends their lives together because fuck canon :), elderly adashi, keith is a human cursed as a gargoyle, minor adashi, secret passageways
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-07-14 13:38:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 38,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16041551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parchmints/pseuds/parchmints
Summary: In the land of Arus, the youngest Nalquodian prince—Prince Leandro—is hidden away in a little castle that overlooks the kingdom; a countermeasure to protect him from the Galran assassins that have sworn to take his life.And in the tallest tower of the castle, behind a grimy rose window and under a dusty sheet, is an enchanting gargoyle that the prince finds himself compelled to visit every day.Almost as if by a spell...





	1. in the middle of the night

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! :D Here's the first chapter of the Gargoyle au I've been yammerin about on twitter for two months!
> 
> Couple notes:  
> 1\. This story was inspired by swordiris' gorgeous art [here](https://twitter.com/swordiris/status/1030572715105705985) which was so beautiful and so my aesthetic that it made me break my vow to stop adding klance projects but lmao here we are!  
> 2\. Big thanks to [Emma](http://riptidelance.tumblr.com/) for betaing—she seriously helped me out on this so hhh omg thank you so much. Also big thanks to [Noelle](https://genericpaladin.tumblr.com/) for giving it one more look over! <3  
> 3\. Some references—the rose window looks like [this](https://www.google.com/search?q=rose+window&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjo96TVzMrdAhUE8YMKHVm0B-MQ_AUIDigB:) but no stained glass. [This](https://www.google.com/search?q=drachenburg+castle&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiJkZ-L34XdAhVor1QKHX1yCccQ_AUICygC&biw=1406&bih=700#imgrc=Od-gVsXAMthvkM:) is the castle I based the Arusian castle on if you're a visual person like me. It's not the same exactly, but it's close.  
> 4\. The story will reference years sometimes, like this story takes place in "1762" but this isn't *our* 1762, it's theirs as this story is set in a completely different world than our own. Hope that makes sense.  
> 5\. The story will have four chapters total and I hope to get them out once a month-ish (probably won't have one in October tho) but the chapter lengths will be big like this 15k monster.  
> 6\. Title and chapter titles are from "Lover of the Light" by Mumford & Sons  
> 7\. I have a playlist for this fic [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/1216900783/playlist/16lD4SOOAxCSikg9cHyql2?si=XaGYd9y9R-qxM6-k986kRQ)
> 
> Sorry I always write novels in my notes D: but I hope you enjoy!!

**you build your tower (but call me home)**

_Chapter 1: in the middle of the night_ **  
**

Once upon a time, in a land of dying magic, there was a boy.

The boy was an orphan, but he was also strong and brave and quick with a sword. His skills were noticed by one of the kingdom’s most celebrated knights and, due to the knight’s neverending kindness, he took the boy under his wing and helped him become a squire.

Though a bit temperamental, the boy quickly became well respected among his ranks. His skills with a sword were unparalleled and his protective, decisive nature made it clear to all he would become an excellent knight—so excellent, in fact, that he might have even surpassed his mentor one day.

With his brave, noble air and handsome face, it was only a matter of time before someone fell in love with him.

But that also meant it was only a matter of time before someone hated him.

On one stormy, hellish night, the boy had gone to his favorite spot in all the castle to read of far-off places when his body suddenly felt very odd.

His skin felt cold and his bones heavy. He tried to make his way to his chambers, but moving his legs felt like lifting ten-ton boulders.

Panicking, the boy looked at his palms and watched in horror as they went from calloused alabaster to grey stone.

He tried to scream, but it was no use. His throat and vocal folds had turned to granite. One-by-one every part of him turned to stone—his eyes, his lungs, his skin. Everything.

His heart was left for last.

* * *

 

“Your Grace, I know you’re excited, but please sit down.”

Prince Leandro of the kingdom Nalquod, or “Lance” as he is fondly referred to by his loved ones, looks from the vertical windows of his family’s carriage to his attendant Iverson with a pout.

“But I can’t see the castle if I’m sitting down,” he whines.

With a huff, Iverson straightens his back and leers down at Lance with a single disapproving eye, his left one permanently closed from an old war wound. “You’ll be able to see it just fine in a few moments. For now, sit down. You’re a young prince. You shouldn’t be so... _rambunctious_.”

Lance can’t help but scoff at the word. “As if you weren’t rambunctious when you were my age. I’ve heard the rumors from the knights who were squires at the same time as you, _Sir_ Iverson.”

There’s a teasing lilt to Lance’s voice and a smirk on his lips that are just annoying enough to visibly ruffle Iverson’s very stiff feathers.

“I,” Iverson starts, composing himself and falling into the commanding voice he takes whenever he’s scolding the squires in his charge, “never, even in my youth, disobeyed orders from my King and Queen. As it is, the King and Queen made you my ward while you’re in Arus, so I kindly ask that you respect their wishes—as well as mine—and do as I say.”

Iverson says “ask” but he’s not really asking—he’s telling. Lance muses that for being a prince, he sure does take a lot of orders.

With a small groan, Lance sinks back into his carriage seat. Iverson treats himself to a tight-lipped smile at his victory before returning back to his evening paper while Lance presses his temple to the carriage window.

There’s a peaceful sort of ambiance that comes with riding in Arus on a crisp autumn day—there’s brown, orange, and yellow leaves falling like snow around them, the horses’ shoes are clip-clopping against the cobblestone roads, and the faint smell of apples sneaks its way into the cab. Lance notices that the trees and ground are littered with the fruit and he’s eager to try one. It’s all very romantic, Lance decides. He’s always liked autumn, though he’s more of a summer person. There’s something _magical_ about all the trees and bushes decorating the countryside with their technicolored foliage, like some big party celebrating the abandonment of the old and welcoming of the new.

 _Ironic_ , Lance thinks because if there was ever a fitting word for his current predicament, “new” summed it up pretty well.

Lance had been sent away by his parents, the King and Queen of Nalquod, to the neighboring country of Arus for his protection. He was sent with only Sir Iverson, one of the court’s highest ranking knights, and nine other servants, but no other friendly company to keep the party small and inconspicuous. The plan was to hide away Lance and his siblings with as little attention as possible in the hopes that they’d be untrackable to Galra forces.

Lance and his siblings had protested at first, none of them wanting to leave their home and friends, but their parents insisted it was necessary. The Galra wanted them dead and the King and Queen spared no precaution in keeping their beloved children safe, even it if it meant tearing them away from all that they loved.  

Sighing, Lance presses a hand to the window and tries to angle his head to get a better look at the castle that is to be his new home for...well, he doesn’t quite know.

“It is not becoming of a gentleman to sigh like a groundskeeper in the sun.”

“Ugh, it’s just the two of us,” Lance says, rolling his eyes. “Can’t I sigh when we’re alone in a carriage?”

“Manners are a habit, Your Grace. You must practice them at all times for them to stick.”

Lance bites down the impulse to sigh again.

Instead, he continues to look out along the tree-riddled landscape, hoping to catch a better look at his new home, but only succeeding in seeing the tops of the towers.

“Iverson?”

“Hm?”

“Why is the castle unoccupied?”

Iverson folds his paper in his lap and tighten his lips in a contemplative line. “Not sure, myself. It used to be a popular stay for lesser nobles, but I heard there was a tragedy of sorts that made it no longer desirable to visit. King Klaizap assured the King and Queen there was nothing wrong with it, however, and that they’ve been meaning to make use of it again. He said something about how the tragedy sucked the joy from the place, but that’s nonsense. Joy is an emotion, not something that lives between bricks.”

“You know, Iverson, you don’t have a romantic bone in your body.”

“It’s a good thing I don’t need _romance_ to protect you, Your Grace.”

Lance is about to fire back a retort when the carriage rolls into a clearing where he can _finally_ get a good look at his home-away-from-home.

It’s a small castle—well, small for what Lance is used to—but it has an elegant charm to it that makes Lance love it immediately. The base stones are varying shades of grey and the roofs of the towers are a muted teal that adds an appreciated and classy pop of color to the scheme. There are five towers of varying heights total—three shorter, cylindrical ones and the other two rectangular. There’s a forward area of the castle that holds most of the rooms and towers, and a back area that only holds the one, tallest tower. The two sections are connected by a long hall supported with flying buttresses that add another layer of grandeur to the fine architectural design.

There are thousands of little intricate details Lance tries and fails to absorb all at once, but he is able to catch the dozens of gargoyles and grotesques that perch along every tower, the unkempt and wild state of the gardens, and most of all, the tallest, singular tower in the back section. Lance is enchanted by the large, ornate rose window that’s installed on its western face—he bets on his life that it has the best view in all of Arus.

And it hits Lance then, that this is his castle. _His_. He’ll be the only member of the royal family here, and therefore, the authority. He knows his arrival here is not a happy occasion and this is not something he’s earned, but just the same he feels pride swell in him that this will be a castle he runs.

“Do you like it? It’s a bit of a mess, but we’ll have the servants fix the gardens and the wait staff has tidied up inside for you already,” Iverson says, staring out the window himself.

Lance smiles, still staring out. “It’s _incredible_.”

“Thought that’s what you’d say.”

* * *

The inside of the castle, though not as luxurious as Lance is used to, is just as fine and elegant as its exterior; the halls are fitted with plush, intricate carpets, the walls are adorned with immaculate portraits, and the curtains are made with opulent satins with meticulously hand-sewn patterns.

It’s beautiful, Lance decides—but it’s also lonely.

It’s a far smaller castle than his home in Nalquod, but the sheer lack of people in it makes it feel far larger and far emptier. Lance isn’t completely alone; he still has his nine attendants and Iverson, but they’re all on the clock while Lance’s only real job is to stay alive.

He’s only been at the Arusian castle for a week, but the isolation and boredom are already getting to him. For two hours in the morning, Iverson tutors him on politics, geography, and the Altean language. Then, for an hour in the afternoon, Iverson trains him in archery and sword fighting and it’s the most eventful part of his day. He’s not allowed to make nice with the villagers because he’s in hiding and Iverson doesn’t even want Lance to go outside all that much.

The worst of it all is dinner time. The only person in the household permitted to sit and eat at the table with Lance is Iverson, but he often skips dinner to catch up on his knightly duties. Iverson, a legendary Nalquodian knight in his own right, oversees the training of squires in the kingdom, and even though he’s acting as Lance’s personal guard he still has stacks of important correspondence to get through. The conversation during the meals they do share leaves much to be desired anyway, as Iverson is a gruff, steely man in his fifties while Lance has only just turned twenty-one and likes to talk about pretty girls, adventures, and his friends. Suffice to say, there’s not much they have in common.

That isn’t to say Lance doesn’t _try_.

Iverson is a knight—Lance figures there must be some part of him that enjoys a good tale of heroism, so he tries telling him about one of his books over breakfast.

“And then the mage blasted the orc with ice magic and froze him to the ground and—!”

“There’s no such thing as orcs,” Iverson says, nose stuck in the morning paper.

Lance rolls his eyes. “It’s a _story_ , Iverson.”

“Your time would be better spent reading the histories of the world, Your Grace.”

Lance stays quiet for the rest of the meal.  

 

The cook that accompanies Lance is good and he prepares Lance’s favorite dishes well, but they taste dull in his mouth with no company to enjoy it with. It’s a stark contrast to what he’s used to—giant tables filled to the brim with smiling family and friends, all talking over each other and tangling their arms as they reach for all sorts of impeccable smelling food. It was rare they’d ever have an empty seat and now, when Lance just sees two long rows of finely upholstered chairs, he feels like he’s sitting in a luxurious graveyard with wooden tombstones lined up before him.

The thought causes Lance to sigh and place his spoon down in his bisque, worrying the wait staff.

“Your Majesty, is the food not to your satisfaction?” a maid with a kind, round face asks.

Lance smiles at her reassuringly. “No, no. It’s delicious. I think I’ve just lost my appetite, that’s all.”

“Are you feeling ill, Your Majesty?”

“No, I’m fine. Thank you. I’m just going to get an early night,” he says and leaves for his one sanctuary—the library.

Lance has never been much of a reader, but this week of monotony has him chewing through books like he’s his friend Princess Katerina of Olkari. He sticks mostly to fiction—romances and adventures being his favorite—but they just make him long for an adventure of his own, instead of living under house arrest for circumstances beyond his control.

And that’s how his days go—breakfast, tutoring, lunch, exercise, reading, dinner, more reading, bed. Then, start it all over again in the morning.

He tries not to complain, he really does, but his grievances make themselves known to Iverson soon enough.

“It’s not forever,” Iverson tells him at breakfast, nose stuck in his paper. “Just be patient. You’ll be home with your brothers and sisters soon enough.”

Lance isn’t sure why, but he doesn’t believe him.

* * *

It’s two weeks into Lance’s “relocation” that something romantic happens. He’s finished with his tutoring for the day and, as customary, he heads to the library to scour the shelves for a new, hopefully interesting, novel to pass the time. He’s having a rough time today—every title he picks up seems historical and dull, the bottom step of a rolling ladder breaks when he gets a foot on it, and at some point, a loose book from a high shelf drops right on the top of his head.

Lance releases a high-pitched “yow!” and rubs at his abused skull. He picks up the fallen book and scowls when he reads the title— _Home Remedies for Common Cranium Maladies_.

Still, he presses on, climbing up spiral staircases and rolling ladders to get to the dustier tomes.

 _They’re dusty for a reason_ , he thinks, coughing after opening a particularly unused book. He places it back on the shelf and jumps off the ladder to the floor of the second level. He scans the bright, sunlit library, hoping to find a section he hasn’t touched yet when his eyes land on a bookshelf in the opposite corner. He shuffles down the stairs, holding the wooden handrail as he does, and skips the bottom step—an act Iverson would admonish him for if he were here. When Lance gets to the shelving, he smiles at the thick layer of dust on all the books—a grimy confirmation he hasn’t paged through them yet.

“Yes!” he whispers roughly, eyes brightening at his find.

He drums his finger along the spines, dirtying it as he goes, and tries to find an interesting sounding title, but nothing sticks out.

He gets to the shelf that’s about chest-level when he finds a spine that’s something of an anomaly; the book is bound in blue leather, is slightly taller than the other books on the row, and instead of a title or author, there’s just a symbol in gold leaf at the center of its spine. The symbol itself is a little hard to make out as it’s faded and covered in dust, but when Lance wipes away some of the dust with his hand, he thinks he knows what it is—two sparring swords crossed over what is either a mandala or rose window.

There’s something deliciously cryptic about the heroic emblem and lack of title on the spine that draws Lance to it. He grabs the spine and pulls, but is surprised to find he’s met with resistance.   

“Huh.”

Lance tugs a bit harder, but the book doesn’t budge. He cranes his head over the book and slides his hand between where the wall and the pages meet and he finds that it isn’t fastened to the wall, and that the book is able to tip forward. Lance pulls down on it like it’s a lever, the book tipping, but still fastened to the shelf. This causes a heavy click to release from somewhere above him and it sounds like a large lock has been unlatched.  

With an impressive creak,  the shelf in front of Lance creeps open towards him. The discovery startles Lance so much that he stumbles backward and crashes to the floor with a yelp. The pain in his backside dulls, however, as Lance watches the bookshelf angle out like it’s a door.

It hits him then—he’s opened a secret passageway.

With a delighted gasp, Lance stands up and rushes to the opening of the newly opened door. He’s only ever read about secret passageways in books before as his home castle in Nalquod has no such thing (trust him, he’s looked), so this find has him positively giddy.

With a careful hand on the side of the new door, Lance peeks his head to see what lies beyond the hatch and finds the passageway is darker and narrower than he expected. The only thing that fits into the small alcove is a spiral stone staircase that’s squeezed in as tight as it possibly can be to still be usable. Lance is sure if he were any bigger he wouldn’t be able to fit at all.

But as it is…

It doesn’t even take a second for Lance to slip through the doorway and grab the iron handle on it’s back to close it. This is the most adventure he’s seen in two weeks and he’ll be damned if he isn’t going up those stairs.

With the bookshelf-door closed it’s even darker than before. There’s just enough dim sunlight cracking through from the top that he’s able to maneuver the stairs without tripping.

He takes his time going up each step, basking in the mystery and excitement of it all—where does it lead? What stories does it hold? Does this lead to a secret treasure room with rubies and sapphires sprinkled amongst doubloons like colorful stars in a golden sky? Or is it for something far darker? A place to store bodies from a deranged killer? Or is it a place where two lovers could secretly meet even though their families and social status forbid it?

Lance sighs. There are so many possibilities.

He continues to hike up the stairs, which feel so endless now that he’s sure they’re leading to the top of a tower. With every step, Lance’s excitement grows, eager to see what he’ll find beyond this mountain of steps. He climbs up them faster, no longer having the patience for the slow, appreciative pace he was going at before, and he’s not too proud to admit that his calves start to burn. Despite the minimal pain in his legs, his momentum builds and he can’t seem to get up the stairs fast enough.

And it’s odd, but Lance almost feels like he’s being _pulled_ up the stairs, like someone’s tied a rope in between the slots of his ribs and is tugging him skywards.

 _Mother always did say I had an active imagination_ , he thinks, but the thought of it all being in his head seems more ludicrous than the alternative to him somehow. He can’t explain it, but he’s _sure_ he’s doing exactly what he’s supposed to be doing, that his current path was ordained by the Fates.

He’s practically skipping steps as the small, alcoved staircase begins brightening—a light source undoubtedly getting closer now. The constant spiral upwards is making him dizzy and his calves are _definitely_ burning now, but he doesn’t stop—he _can’t_.

It’s with a huge sigh of relief and the turning of a corner that he sees a door with a small, square window up ahead. He smiles and rushes to get to the last step that sits in front of the door—his heart pounding desperately from both the exercise and his own excitement. He faces the door and takes a deep breath, trying to gather his wits about him again and to relish in the reveal.

When he feels good and ready, his hand gently wraps around the rusted door handle and pulls. It resists at first—Lance assumes from disuse over the years—and drags against the stone floor with a horrible groan, but it eventually gives way and opens for him.

And Lance is blinded by light.

He hovers the back of his hand over his eyes to block out some of the rays and squints as his eyes adjust—they’re so used to darkness that the overwhelming amount of sunlight is a shock to them.

Finally, he lets down his hand and blinks against the strain in his eyes until the room comes into focus. Lance doesn’t try to contain his gasp when he sees the source of the incredible amount of sunlight—a large, intricate rose window that takes up the entirety of the western wall. He realizes he’s in the tower that so hypnotized him the first time he set eyes on the castle.

The tower is soaked in rays and Lance can see dust particles gently floating through the air, giving the whole room a glittering, nostalgic feel. The dust covers everything—the wooden floorboards, the white sheets draping various pieces of furniture, and old framed paintings left forgotten and leaning against the walls. Even the rose window itself has a thick coat of grime layering over it.  

There’s so much to take in, so much Lance wants to investigate, but he finds himself staring at one mound in particular. It’s covered by a chalky sheet that sits right in front of the window, dead center, and it’s undoubtedly the tallest piece of furniture in the room at about six-feet tall. The shape isn’t immediately recognizable to Lance.

He steps slowly towards it, transfixed. The rope that tugged at his ribcage is back and pulling him harder than ever to the mysterious object. His heart is racing again and he’s not sure if it’s from the exercise or if he’s _nervous_ , like somehow unveiling whatever is underneath the sheet will change his life forever.

 _Ridiculous,_ he thinks.

Lance stretches out his hand and time seems to slow down as he reaches for the dirty cloth. A million thoughts pass through his mind as his fingers entangle themselves in the sheet; all of them telling him this is a moment of significance, that this isn’t a mundane event.

With a decisive jerk of his arm, the sheet comes flying off and again, the moment is in slow motion. Lance watches the sheet fly up and flare, watches the dust bounce off and into the air, catching the sunlight, and he watches the sheet come down delicately to reveal the prize underneath.

Lance’s eyes widen and his breath hitches when he sees it; it’s like a fist has punched him in the stomach and he’s hit with the strangest sense of déjà vu, like he not only recognizes what he’s seeing, but is intimately familiar with it. The sudden overwhelming sensation causes him to grip the sheet in his right hand so tight his nails manage to leave little crescent marks in his palm through the fabric.

Towering in front of him is a statue—a _gargoyle_ —unlike Lance has ever seen before. It’s made of grey granite and in the shape of a man, or perhaps an angel? A demon? Either way, he isn’t human. He reminds Lance of a bat with his fuzzy, pointed ears, the sharp claws that accent his fingers and toes, and—most strikingly—his large, sturdy wings that jut out from his bare shoulder blades. He kneels on a round pedestal with wings only half spread, giving the illusion that he’s just about to kick off the ground and take flight.

Lance takes a couple steps closer, eager to get a better look at the statue’s face, and he quickly loses his breath again.

Because the face is _handsome_ —all sharp angles and sharp lines, but with an underlying softness hidden away in the little details. The canines protruding from his relaxed mouth are sharp and vampiric, but his nose is round and sweet, almost precious in its normality.

But what really catches Lance’s attention, what he can’t seem to pull his gaze from, is the statue’s eyes. They’re pupil-less and smooth, like most statues, but they’re almond shaped and, Lance can’t explain it, but he feels _depth_ there—like they’re looking at Lance just as intently as he’s looking back.

Before Lance even knows what he’s doing he gets closer to the statue, drawn in so completely by the eyes, that he’s almost nose-to-nose with it. Slowly, he raises a hand, filled with a sudden need to feel the cool stone of the statue’s cheek beneath his fingertips, but just as he’s about to, he stops.

He blinks rapidly and looks around him, almost like he’s woken from a trance and backs up, shaking his head. Lance squeezes his eyes shut and pinches the bridge of his nose to ground himself, but he can’t seem to get rid of the slight light-headedness behind his eyes or the strain in his chest. That, plus the added fact that the statue seems to be _staring_ at him, Lance feels like the air is heavy with tension.

Lance tries to break it and lays on his thickest, suavest voice. “You come up here often?”

The statue doesn’t react and Lance laughs at himself.

“Yeah, that’s the response the ladies give me too.”

He takes another good look at the gargoyle, then begins circling it, looking at the finer details. He notes the broad, bare chest and shoulders, the tattered trousers with frayed edges at the ankles, and all the shaggy hair that gathers at the base of his neck.

“You sure are somethin’. Bit too broody, though, if you ask me. You should smile more.”

He grows silent again, scrunching his face as his eyes stay glued to the gargoyle. The statue is clearly well sculpted, but Lance’s upbringing in high society has exposed him to the work of the masters and this work isn’t anything particularly special.

_But I can’t take my eyes off it…_

He daydreams that perhaps the statue is somehow enchanted, like something out of one of his storybooks. It’s far-fetched, he knows, but not impossible—magic users have basically died out with some exceptions in Altea and Daibazaal, so there’s a _chance_ , but highly unlikely. Magic is a rare commodity, even to a prince of Nalquod.  

 _It’s just an eye-catching statue,_ he tells himself with a dismissive wave. He places his hands on his hips and stares out the rose window, but as soon as he looks to the little Arusian village, his eyes are already sneaking back to glance at the statue through his peripherals. It only takes him a second to give in to temptation and look again, but this time he notices something he hadn’t seen before—a stone plaque on the rim of the base with a carved inscription.

Immediately curious, Lance kneels down to read it. It’s covered in dust despite the sheet and Lance swipes his hand over it to reveal the flowy cursive that’s been set in the stone—

 

_Keith, the Granite-Hearted_

_Passion and vigor, sword and bone,_

_cold and cruel to those that adore,_

_soul of stone, shape of stone,_

_released by the heart’s phoenix turn; it beats once more._

 

Lance reads over the inscription a couple times and figures it’s some vague retelling of the statue’s mythos, then stands up and shrugs. His gaze floats back up to the statue’s— _Keith’s_ —face and he smiles as he dusts off his hands. “Well, big guy, whoever made you was a pretty good sculptor, but they were a lousy poet.”

* * *

Lance knows he must _really_ be getting lonely when he finds himself bringing his lunch up to the rose window tower the next day. Iverson had decided to eat lunch in his office to attend to Lance’s financial matters and rather than sitting at that big empty table again, Lance asked the wait staff to give him his meal in a picnic basket. He briefly considered eating in the courtyard to enjoy the newly planted hydrangeas that were blooming beautifully despite the chill in the air, but he found himself heading to the secret passageway anyway.

The ascent doesn’t feel as long now that he knows how far up it goes, but he’s still out of breath when he reaches the top.

 _At least my calves are gonna look amazing after this_ , he thinks as he feels the muscles burn from the previous day’s use.

The tower is just as bright and blinding as it was yesterday, but Lance is ready for it this time so it’s less of an assault on his retinas. He smiles when he sees the gargoyle Keith again, just as noble and steely as he was yesterday, and a warm sensation fills Lance’s chest, like he’s seeing an old friend for the first time in a long time.

Beneath the rose window is a long bench that spans from wall-to-wall and Lance sets up his small basket at its center, right next to Keith. He sits down, fishes out a red Arusian apple, and leans a shoulder against the dusty window, not caring that he’s dirtying the white sleeve of his shirt.   

Biting into his apple, he takes in the charming horizon. He was right when he guessed that the tower would have the best view of the village because he can see for miles—green, rolling hills, cute little houses and inns all lined in disjointed rows, and snaking roads that lead to foreign lands beyond Lance’s reach. He sighs at the thought, rubbing his thumb over the skin of the apple.  

“I wish I could travel,” he says, just as easy and casually as he would if someone was in the room with him. “Wish I could just take a horse and ride the road as far as I could, just to see where it goes.”

Silence. Another bite of fruit.

“This is actually the most traveling I’ve ever done—moving here. This is the first country I’ve been to outside of Nalquod. I like it, but it kinda sucks I can’t do much exploring. Iverson says we can go into town sometimes but only for a little bit and I’m not allowed to really talk to anyone. I can’t even dance with any pretty ladies while I’m here and Arus is _famous_ for dancing.”

Lance can feel himself pouting but he takes a deep breath and looks at Keith.

“I guess I shouldn’t complain though. You’ve been cooped up here way longer than I have by the looks of it.” He laughs, small and humorless. “You know, when I think about it that way, we have a lot in common, huh? Like, I’m a prince—I have money and status and I should be able to do anything I want to do, and you? You’ve got those big strong wings, but they’re kind of useless if they’re made of stone, y‘know?”

And of course, Keith says nothing. Lance doesn’t expect him to and if he’s honest, he’s not sure why he’s even saying all this. But it’s nice. Maybe it’s just his boredom and loneliness, but it kind of feels like Keith hears him—like he’s not just prattling off in an empty room but here with someone who’s silently and patiently listening.  

Lance sighs, takes another bite, and indulges in speaking with his mouth full. “Well, whatever. My parents will find the Galra trying to kill me and my siblings, and then I’ll go back to Nalquod and dance with as many pretty ladies as I like.” Lance swallows and feels his smirk fall as a heavy weight settles on his chest. “Still won’t be able to travel the countryside, though...or go on an adventure. But that’s to be expected, right? I’m a prince, I have to serve my family and people and I’m happy to do it but sometimes…”

Lance watches a couple of doves fly over the courtyard through the window and he suddenly has the ludicrous wish to turn into one.

“Sometimes I wish I didn’t have to,” he whispers. He lets the gravity of what he’s said wash over him for just a beat before he shakes his head and gives his stone friend a smile. “But what we want isn’t necessarily what we get—that’s what my dad always says! It’s the same for everyone. You too—I bet this isn’t what you wanted. Or, I dunno, maybe it was, but I can’t imagine _wanting_ to be all alone in a tower for all of eternity, but to each his own.”

With a shrug, Lance shoves his apple core in the basket and pulls out a sandwich. He eats in silence, feeling oddly vulnerable. He’s never told anyone that he felt that way, not even Rachel, and saying it out loud, even when he’s alone, makes him feel... _exposed._

But despite that, he also feels light, like a fraction of the weight he’s been harboring in his chest has lifted. He looks back at Keith and takes in all those sharp, angular features. Perhaps those bat ears can’t actually hear him, but something about the statue makes it so easy pretend that they can.

Lance decides then that he’ll just keep pretending Keith hears every word; he has no one else to talk to, so what’s the harm?

Never one to be ungrateful, Lance smiles sincerely and says, “Thanks for listening, Keith.”

* * *

That night is the first night Lance dreams.

When he wakes up the next morning, all he remembers is a beautiful pair of emerald eyes and the gargoyle in the tower.

He doesn’t think anything of it.

* * *

“Okay, so there’s my oldest brother Luís—he’s the next in line for the throne, which is good because he’s definitely the most mature out of all of us. Nicest too, I think,” Lance says, holding up a smudged sketch of his family for Keith to see as he points out family members. “He doesn’t tease me like the others. Then, there’s Veronica. She takes things really seriously and it can be a pain, but I really respect how devoted she is to our country. This is Marco. He’s the middle child and the only one who gets in more trouble than I do. And then, that’s my twin sister Rachel! We’re not identical but mom always said if you put a wig on me we would be.”

Lance takes back the sketch to look at it for himself and feels a small smile tug at his lips.

“I miss her and mom the most. When you’re a twin you just get so used to being _together_ that it’s kind of weird bein’ on your own. Rach and I told each other everything...well, mostly everything. I don’t think I’ve ever gone more than a day without speaking to her.”

The tears come suddenly. They prick at the corner of Lance’s eyes and before he gets a chance to hold them back, they’re already spilling onto his cheeks. It’s just one or two, luckily, and he swipes them away with his sleeve. He hadn’t planned for this to be an emotional talk; he just thought Keith would like some context for his stories about his family, but if Keith’s judging him for crying, he doesn’t say anything.

“Sorry. I think I got some dust in my eye. Super dusty up here,” Lance says, clearing his throat. He sits down on the bench and rests the back of his head against the window.

It’s been three days since Lance first started having lunch in the tower, and in those three days he’s taken to cleaning up the place a bit. The rose window (or what he could reach of it) was the first thing to get a good wash.

Lance’s eyes glaze over as his mind unfolds memories of Rachel and the rest of his family.

“Y’know, Keith, I don’t think I was ever lonely a day in my life until I came here,” he says, sighing. “I don’t know. Maybe that’s not true. You can feel alone in a crowded room, I guess. I think I just mean I _always_ had someone to talk to. One of the perks of being a twin. But now I just…I mean, not that you aren’t _great_ company, of course, but the conversation can get a little one-sided, that’s all.”

“But enough about me,” Lance says with a little smile, like he’s laughing at an inside joke only he’s clued in to. “How’s your day been?”

And, like always, Keith doesn’t respond.

Lance lightly bangs his head against the window and groans. “Yeah, that’s what I’d thought you’d say.”

* * *

Lance dreams again, but this time he sees more.

The emerald eyes are now accompanied by curtains of startling red hair and Lance sees another set of eyes, another mop of hair in the fog of the dreamscape. Black hair, darker than crow feathers. Violet eyes, unlike anything he’s ever seen before.

When the eyes—amethyst and beautiful beyond anything—meet Lance’s, he wakes with a gasp.

* * *

 

After a week of visits to the rose window tower, Lance brings up a chess board for them to play with.

He finds an old, sturdy wooden table and chair, cleans them, and sets them up in front of Keith like he’s an ordinary opponent. He lays out the board and gives Keith the black pieces, and himself white.

“Have you ever played before?” Lance asks, looking up into the statue’s eyes. “I’m gonna assume yes because explaining the rules would be a pain—anyway, I’m pretty good at this so don’t expect me to go easy on you!”

Keith responds with silence. Lance moves out a white pawn.

“My friend Pidge taught me how to play and I play against her and Hunk all the time. They’re both kind of geniuses though, so they always win. But I can beat everyone in my family after going toe-to-toe with them, so I don’t mind,” Lance says, looking over the black pieces. “Think you’d be an aggressive player…”

Lance places one of the black pawns on e6, setting Keith up for a King’s Gambit.

Advancing another white pawn, Lance continues his idle chatter. “Pidge and Hunk are my best friends, but they’re not from my country. Pidge is a princess from Olkari and Hunk is a Balmeran prince, so I get to see them when their parents visit for trade agreements and stuff, but I never get to go to their countries.”

He puts another black pawn out and rubs his chin, thinking of his next play.

“My parents are kinda overprotective,” he says, moving his white bishop. “Pidge and Hunk aren’t their actual names, by the way. Just nicknames because we all get really sick of ‘Your Grace’ this and ‘Your Highness’ that, y’know? Pidge’s real name is Katerina but her family calls her Katie so she has, like, double nicknames. Hunk is actually Tsuyoshi, but we saw a couple of maids giggling about him once, so we called him ‘Hunk’ to tease him and it stuck. And my real name is Leandro, but they call me Lance, so you can too.”

He’s several moves ahead now and he recognizes his bishop is in trouble, but he’ll be able to take Keith’s bishop down with him if Lance uses his knight. Looking at Keith’s pieces, he thinks it’s worth the sacrifice and lets Keith take the white bishop.

“I don’t really get to see them often, but we send letters all the time,” Lance says, taking Keith’s black bishop with his knight. “I’ve written them and my family, but Iverson says he needs to ensure a safe channel before we can send them. We don’t want the Galra tracking me here. Which I get.”

Lance plays in silence for a few more turns; the game is getting increasingly difficult, and he’s having a hard time staying objective and fair. Humming, he advances Keith’s black castle to capture his own.

“Damn…” he breathes as he tries to envision the next couple turns. Shaking his head, he puts out another pawn. “Still, I miss them. More than I realized actually. It’s nice being with people who just treat you like a normal person.”

As he places Keith’s knight on f6 it strikes Lance again how odd this whole thing is—sitting here, playing with a statue and speaking with him like he’s a real person when Lance knows he’s _not_. His intention had always been to use the tower as a way to blow off steam, but the more time Lance spends up here, the more time he spends with _Keith_ , the more he feels like he’s being heard.

He can’t explain it and he’s not sure he should try but he’s so inexplicably drawn to the statue, so inclined to pour all his feelings into it that he wonders if maybe, just maybe, there’s more to Keith than granite.

 _No, it’s only your lonely mind losing itself,_ he thinks, cynical.  

 _I know what’s real and what isn’t,_ he argues. _I know he’s not playing, I know I’m playing a game of chess with myself. But still…_

Lance stops to look up at the gargoyle for the millionth time since he discovered him. Nothing has changed physically, but the feeling that there’s something _off_ about it has only increased with every visit.

With a sigh of resignation, Lance looks down at the sparse board in front of him. He lifts his hand to move a rook but pauses, his mouth falling open.

Keith has him in checkmate.

* * *

 

“Where have you been sneaking off to in the afternoons, Your Grace?” Iverson asks over breakfast.

Lance chokes on a bit of his toast, which of course sends the wait staff to either side of him immediately.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” he assures, wiping away at his mouth with an embroidered napkin. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve been taking your lunch out for almost two weeks. Where do you go?”

Lance’s posture straightens and he feels his stomach drop. His visits to the tower aren’t exactly a secret he’s trying to keep, but he’s also afraid that if he tells Iverson he’s been hiding away in a tower that he’ll find some way to take it away from him.

“Just the library,” Lance lies, hoping it has just enough truth in it to be believable. “You work so often through lunch and dinner that I thought I’d get some more reading in too.”

“Oh? That’s good to hear. I’m glad you’re taking your studies more seriously. I’m sure the Queen will be happy to hear that.”

“Has she sent word?” Lance asks, perking up at the chance to change the subject and at the possibility of getting a letter.

When Iverson’s frown deepens, he knows she hasn’t. “I’m sorry, Your Grace. It’s not yet safe for us to do so. But soon.”

Lance’s good posture crumbles and he pokes at his eggs with his fork. He props his chin on his hand and he knows Iverson must feel some pity for him because he doesn’t even try to lecture him on his bad manners.

“Yeah, soon.”

* * *

 

“There’s this country north of Nalquod called Daibaizaal and there’s been tension between us for decades. Daibazaal has annexed a lot of foreign lands but they’ve never been able to take over us or Altea, so that makes them mad and _we’re_ mad because they’re, y’know, an imperialist regime, wreaking havoc and ruin all over the world. Suffice to say, not a super simpatico relationship.”

They’re “playing” chess again when Lance’s one-sided conversation wanders to his current situation. Lance holds up the black king piece for Keith to see.

“And so Zarkon—that’s the Galra king—is targeting the royal family,  _my_ family, and trying to take our throne by force,” Lance explains with a nonchalant shrug, like he’s telling a story of someone bumping into him without apologizing. “Hey, why do you think the Galra go by the _Galra_? Like, their country’s called Daibazaal, so shouldn’t they be the Daibazaalians? Daibazaalites? That’s kind of a mouth-full. Daiban? I don’t know, but Galra doesn’t make sense.”

Keith continues to stare ahead out the window without so much as a nod of acknowledgment.   

“Anyway, about a month ago, a Galra tried to kill Luís and his wife in their sleep, but the assassin got more than he bargained for with my brother and got clobbered,” Lance says as he makes his white knight bash a black pawn. “My parents took the threat really seriously though, so they sent me and my siblings to a bunch of countries that are part of the coalition. And that’s why I’m here! My father doesn’t want any of us coming out of hiding until they’ve settled the Galra problem, but honestly? Who knows when that’ll be.”

Slowly, Lance puts down the chess pieces and a flood of heavy dread consumes him. It brings him to his feet and makes him pace the length of the attic. This isn’t something he realized initially—how uncertain the timeline for his stay is—but after weeks of being in this lifeless castle, it’s eating up his thoughts despite how often he tries to ignore it. Now that he’s said the words, voiced them to Keith, he can’t help but face it—he could be stuck here for _years_.

“I mean, how are they supposed to fix this? How do you just _stop_ an assassin? Like, sure, you can kill him, but Daibazaal’s a huge country! They can just send _more assassins_. So, what’s the alternative? Do they sign a peace treaty? Give over our country to them to ensure our safety? What’s the endgame, Keith? Am I just gonna have to watch over my shoulder for the rest of my life? Or stay stuck in this castle forever?” Lance throws his hands in the air.

“What’s the point?! Okay, sure, I’ll be alive, but what kind of life is...is _this_ ,” he says, gesturing to the room with his arms outstretched. “What am I supposed to _do_?”

Then, irrationally, Lance’s chest fills with a slow, burning magma as he stares into Keith’s cold, unfeeling eyes.

“What?! No ‘don’t worry, Lance. It’ll all work out in the end’? No ‘you’re working yourself up over nothing’? No ‘it’s going to be okay’? _Nothing_?!”

With a frustrated growl, Lance gives a sheet-covered armchair a swift kick and delights in the satisfying _thump_ sound it makes. Still burning, Lance slams his back against a wall to lean on, crosses his arms, and scowls at the ground.

“Would it really be so hard for you to tell me it’s going to be okay?” Lance asks, voice cracking. “I thought mom or Rachel or _someone_ would have sent me a letter by now and just...if just one person, if _anyone_ just told me…”

He slides to the ground, knees tucked close to his chest as the anger dissipates into something cold and heavy.

“...that everything would be alright, that everyone’s gonna be _safe_ , then maybe I’d believe them, but no one’s saying that…” Lance whispers, voice shaky. He fold his arms over his knees and buries his head in them, keeping silent for several moments. His chest hurts like he’s been punched repeatedly and he just wants it to stop. He doesn’t want to be feeling the things he’s feeling; he has to be strong and trust his parents, but he’s doing a terrible job on both accounts.

If there was just someone he could talk to, really talk to, he knows he’d feel so much better. If there was just someone to offer him a kind word or a warm hug every now-and-then, then Lance thinks he’d be invincible.

But there’s not.

Looking up from his arms, Lance wipes away the stray tears on his cheeks with the heel of his palm and looks up at Keith—the closest thing he has to a friend in this whole place.

In the smallest of whispers he says, “I wish you were real.”

* * *

 

It’s in the moments before sleep that Lance thinks of Keith the most. He likes to imagine Keith as some brave demon warrior who protected the castle hundreds of years ago and was immortalized and carved into stone for his valor. Lance pours over the odd inscription on his pedestal and wonders what inspired it for, surely, there’s a story there.

Or, perhaps Keith was a ruthless killer and was punished for his crimes?

Lance doesn’t like that theory much; he prefers the strong, but silent hero he’s imagined in his daydreams. Plus, it wouldn’t do for a prince to be making nice with a criminal.

He wonders if maybe he’s spending too much time with Keith, as he’s becoming a permanent fixture in Lance’s dreams along with the emerald-eyed lady and the amethyst-eyed man. The dreams are always the same—he only sees quick flashes of images, but every night he sees more details, clearer and crisper than the night before.

But tonight, it’s a little too clear.

 

_He doesn’t realize, but Lance is dreaming; he’s walking the grand hall late at night and everything looks so real that it’s impossible to differentiate from the waking world._

_He walks down the hallway, taking light, cautious steps so as not to disturb anyone in the castle, but the silence is broken by the gentle sobs of an unseen woman. Lance takes a step towards the crying, but as soon as he does, he’s transported to a completely different part of the castle._

_He winds up in a castle bedroom next and Lance recognizes it immediately as a room meant for nobility. By the fireplace, he notices a slight figure in an emerald cloak, chanting in a tongue Lance is unfamiliar with. Lance watches her quietly, but almost breaks his silence with a shout when the bricks in the fireplace start parting from the center to reveal a hidden passage. As the figure continues into the passage, Lance tries to follow, but he’s stopped short when the figure suddenly turns to face him and he’s met with emerald eyes that seem to glow and red hair that almost floats._

_He’s transported again and this time he’s in the rose window tower, but it looks different. It’s darker than he’s ever seen it—the sun has set below the horizon and there’s only a single candle on a table. The most staggering difference is that there’s no statue of Keith blocking the view of most of the window, but instead, there’s a boy, about Lance’s age, looking out the window with a book in his lap. He wears a white, loose shirt and black, skin-tight breeches that go to his calves. He also has a mess of raven black hair and Lance’s heart leaps at the familiar sight of it._

_He takes a step forward and watches the boy turn to face him._

_Lance anticipates seeing the amethyst eyes he’s seen so frequently paired with the black hair, but to his horror, he’s not met with a human face at all. Instead, Lance sees a face made of granite—cold, pupil-less, and fanged, and it takes only a moment to realize it’s the_ gargoyle’s _face._

 _The gargoyle’s eyebrows raise when he sees Lance and without warning, he shouts,_ _“_ LANCE! _”_

 

Lance wakes with a jolt and springs to a seated position, his breathing labored and erratic. His heart, too, is beating wildly, like he’s just been running for his life and the entire thing has him shaken and spooked.

It doesn’t help that a roar of thunder booms from the sky and makes Lance jump again. He hadn’t noticed in all the excitement, but it’s raining heavily outside his bedroom window and in the distance he even sees lightning breaking the night sky.

He gets up quickly, sliding on his breeches and tucking his nightshirt in, too jittery and on edge from the nightmare to go back to sleep, and begins pacing around his room.

“Just a dream, just a dream, just a dream,” he says, trying to soothe himself.

Eventually, he moves to the window and watches the heavy rain hit and slide down the window like a waterfall. Pressing his hand to the glass, he’s suddenly struck with the strongest sense of déjà vu he’s ever felt.  

Lance presses a palm to the window, transfixed by the sights and sounds of the rain and the thrumming of his own heart. He replays the dream over and over in his mind, picking apart the details and sorting out the scenes, but nothing— _nothing_ —makes sense. He doesn’t know the woman with the emerald eyes and he doesn’t know the boy with raven-black hair, so why do they haunt his dreams? And what does it have to do with the gargoyle in the tower?

_Keith…_

As soon as the name pops into his mind, Lance knows he has to see him, that there are answers atop the spiral staircase somehow. He grabs the candlestick at his bedside table and lights the candle in it, warmth licking at his fingers as he does. In a rush, he slips on his boots and darts to the door without bothering to grab a cloak.

Lance walks with quick, decisive steps towards the library in the near pitch darkness of the castle and he’s so fierce in his determination to reach the tower that he doesn’t even flinch at the constant flashes of lightning and rumbles of thunder.

 _There’s something not right about the gargoyle_ , Lance thinks, certain. _I can feel it._

And he’s being pulled to the tower, much like how he was the first day he discovered the secret passageway, but now the feeling is tenfold, like he couldn’t stop his body from heading there even if he wanted to.

The natural, long length of his gait and the unseeable force pulling Lance along gets him to the library in what seems like no time at all. Without a hint of hesitation, Lance finds the book on the corner shelf and pulls it back, revealing the passageway for the dozenth time.

The passageway has always been dark and somewhat eerie, but in the dead of night, it’s a solid, pitch black. Fear trembles through Lance, but he straightens his spine and shuts the bookshelf-door behind him.

Climbing the staircase with only a little candle in hand to light his way is unnerving, but he never slows his pace—he’s practically running up the stairs in the need to see the gargoyle again with his own two eyes.

And truthfully, he has no idea what he expects. This entire excursion could be for nothing—probably _is_ for nothing and he’s just gone mad with loneliness—but his instincts tell him to keep going, that there’s more here than meets the eye.

There’s a small voice in the back of his mind that tells him, _just go back to bed. This is all the work of your dumb brain and how much you miss home._

 _I know that_ , he thinks. _I know that, but…_

The top of the staircase comes faster than it ever has before and Lance faces the wooden door and reaches for the handle. His breath is caught in his throat and his heart has sunken to his stomach, but with a fast, grounding breath, he yanks the door open.

Thunder, much louder up here than in his bedroom, crashes around him and a near-blinding flash of lightning illuminates the entire tower. The sudden cacophony and chaos of it all is enough to have Lance’s heart racing, but it’s not nearly as disturbing as the sight in front of him—

Because Keith has _moved_.

Whenever Lance visits the tower, Keith kneels in its center, his face turned to gaze out the rose window and in profile to the door.

But now—now he’s turned twenty-five degrees to face the door directly.

To face _Lance._

Another peal of thunder growls through the air and is quickly followed by another shock of bluish light that sets angular, ominous shadows against the gargoyle’s face. Keith’s eyes, while still pupil-less and unmoving, seem intent on Lance, like he’s been waiting for him to come through the door for hours.

“What the—”

 _He moved_ , Lance thinks, bordering on panic now. _He always faces the window but he_ moved _._

And all of Lance’s instincts are telling him to go, to run away as fast as he can—all of his instincts...except for one.

The familiar pull Lance has felt dragging him up the stairs all these weeks yanks at him again, beckoning him to approach the statue, despite how foolish it feels to do so.

He takes a step forward and curses himself for it.

The walk to Keith is slow and trance-like as Lance finds it impossible to look away from the eyes. It feels like there’s an answer there—tucked away in the deep hollowness of his stone sclera, begging to be discovered—but it doesn’t present itself; the eyes just stare back in a silent plea for Lance to keep going.

And like the weather outside, Lance is a storm of emotions. He’s equal parts terrified and confused and excited—his heart is beating so hard it threatens to jump out of his chest and his knees feel weak beneath him. He’s resolute, despite all this, though he can’t explain why he should be. What is it that makes him so desperate to solve this mystery? What does it matter to him? Halfway to the statue, he just stops questioning it and accepts there’s no going back.

Then, buried beneath all that, is a sleeping dragon of a feeling—warm and powerful—that he can only describe as a devious sort of hopefulness. It’s a feeling that whispers in his ear and says, “oh, just you wait.”

After a few more careful steps, Lance bridges the gap between them and they’re face to face. Between Keith’s kneeling position and the pedestal he’s perched on, he’s only a few inches taller than Lance, but if he were to stand, he’d surely tower over him.

Lance forgets to breathe and his stomach squirms at their proximity. He’s been close to Keith plenty of times, but always in the day and never after he seemingly and magically moved himself.

Lance’s free hand moves on its own towards Keith’s face and it’s halfway there when he hesitates.

 _This is insane. He’s made of_ stone _._

Logical thought doesn’t deter him, however, as his hand starts moving again.

Delicately, gently, Lance’s fingers brush against the cool granite of Keith’s chin. His hand recoils the slightest bit until he gives in to a temptation he didn’t know he was holding back and places his whole palm on Keith’s cheek.

It’s only then that he remembers to let out his breath in a shaky exhale.

Some pressure has lifted now that he’s made contact—he wasn’t sure what he was expecting exactly, but it felt like the fate of the world hinged on the moment.

Despite himself, Lance smiles and lets his thumb brush along Keith’s cheekbone, suddenly filled with sympathy and fondness for his constant companion these few weeks. Why should he have ever been scared of Keith? Touching his face, it seems silly Lance should fear him when, after all, they’re friends.

“How’d you get turned around, big guy?” Lance asks kindly.

The question is left unanswered, like all of Lance’s questions are, but this time he feels a sharp pang of disappointment at the sound of rain and nothing else. He’s struck by the same wish he had a few days ago that Keith was real—that he was a whole person with thoughts and feelings and a _voice_ all his own.

The smile on Lance’s face fades as he sighs and lets his thumb brush against Keith’s cheek one more time.

He’s just about to remove his hand, just about to go to bed and chalk the whole thing up to the maids finding the passageway and moving things for whatever reason, when he feels the stone beneath his palm _warm_.

Lance’s breath hitches and he moves his palm away to see that the stone beneath his skin has _changed_. Where it was once grey, hard, and worn, it’s now lilac, soft, and smooth. It’s just a patch of Keith’s cheek, but it spreads like wildfire to his neck to his chest, his abdomen, his wings, his legs, his feet.

Lance backs up, stunned, as he sees the monotone statue take color and texture—his skin a subdued purple, his fangs white, and his tattered pants a faded grey. His hair is a richer, darker purple than the skin and his eyes, usually open, are now closed with delicate, long lashes fanning over his cheeks.

Lance blinks several times at the sudden transformation, but has no time to rationalize what he’s seeing when the statue _moves_ ; and it’s not simply the pedestal rotating, but the actual _statue_.

Keith’s rise is slow, but steady from the kneeling position he was in—each of his vertebrae stacking one right on top of the other until he stands to his full height on the pedestal, hands clenched at his sides. He’s tall besides, but the pedestal gives him an extra two feet, so he seems a giant to Lance.

And Lance is frozen in shock at the simple shift from kneeling to standing; his heart has stopped beating and his lungs have stopped breathing. He can’t move, he can’t speak—all he can do is _stare_.

It’s then that the statue—or _monster_ , rather—opens his eyes and they’re nothing but two yellow, glowing orbs searching the tower.

Finally, they land on Lance and when they do, his eyebrows raise in tandem with his huge, fanning wings.

The thunder roars and another flash of lightning illuminates the horrific figure, and Lance screams.

He stumbles backward and falls hard on his tailbone, the candlestick falling spectacularly out of his hand and extinguishing, casting him into darkness all except for those _eyes._

Lance’s fight-or-flight response finally kicks in as he scrambles to his feet and runs to the door, clumsy in the darkness of the tower. He wastes no time and finds the door frame without much trouble since he’s used it so many times before.

When he slams the door behind him, he almost swears he hears the monster call out “ _wait!_ ”, but he denies the request and rushes down the stairs as fast as he can. He braces his hands on the wall and the center of the spiral to keep him from tripping, but also so he can keep his momentum.

His heart is beating so fast that his chest is aching and he’s dizzy from the spiral descent, but he tries to put all that aside because he has to keep going—the monster could be right on his tail, an inch away from mauling him to death.

He’s running down the steps faster than he’s ever moved in his life, but it still seems to take a lifetime to finally get to the backside of the bookcase. When he does get there, he pulls on the lever and slides through the crack as soon as it’s big enough. With a sharp pivot he shoves the bookcase closed and heads to the exit, but now that he’s slowed down, his body is catching up to him.

His breathing is labored, he feels light-headed, and just _so_ dizzy that the corners of his vision start to blur.

He takes a single step forward and crumples.

Then, darkness.

* * *

 

“Your Grace! Your Grace, wake up! C’mon!”

There are two strong hands on Lance’s shoulders shaking him with firm, panicked jerks and it stirs him from the deep, dreamless sleep he was under. He comes to slowly—the bright light of the morning sun makes it hard to open his eyes and the sound of Iverson’s distraught voice confuses him.

His eyes finally adjust and he sees Iverson and Florona, one of the maids, hovering over him with wide, worried eyes.

Disoriented and a little sore, Lance looks around and sees he’s lying on the floor of the library.

“How did I—” he starts but stops himself because the memories of the night before flood his mind and render him speechless.

Iverson rubs a soothing hand on his shoulder, looking more concerned than Lance has ever seen him. “Are you alright, Your Grace? Do you remember what happened? Were you sleepwalking?”

“I-”

Wait. _Wait_.

 _Of course,_ he thinks. _It was a dream. I was sleepwalking._

“Yes. Yes, I must have been sleepwalking. Sorry I worried you, but I’m fine just, um... _tired_.”

“I imagine you would be,” Iverson says, surprisingly gentle. “Come on, we’ll skip lessons for today so you can get some proper sleep. Can you stand?”

Lance nods and Iverson and Florona both help him to his feet.

 

When he gets back to his chambers, Florona makes the room nice and dark for him by pulling the heavy curtains closed, then leaves quickly with a polite curtsy. As soon as she leaves, Lance slides into his bed and curls the covers tight up to his chest.

And he’s exhausted, but of course, he doesn’t sleep. Instead, when he closes his eyes he sees Keith—moving, living, demonic _Keith_. Keith with lilac skin and beating wings. Keith with glowing eyes and vampiric teeth. Keith with a glare so sharp it could pierce right through skin. Keith with a body so strong he could snap Lance’s spine like it was a twig.

Lance shivers under his blanket.

 _It was a dream. It wasn’t real_. _There’s no way that could happen,_ he tells himself.

 _But why don’t you believe that?_ he counters.

Lance huffs in frustration and replays the memories—the _dream_ —from the night before.

He remembers everything so vividly that it seems impossible it was all a figment of his imagination, but then it feels far too fantastical to ever be real. Either way, he feels like he can’t trust himself at all.

Especially because there’s a part of him, a dark part of him, that wants the nightmare to be true.

Lance has read dozens of stories where something unexpected and magical happens, and he’s always been the sort who secretly longs for an adventurous life.

And what could be more adventurous than a gargoyle that comes alive?

But he also likes being alive and if Keith really can come to life, then surely _Lance’s_ life would be in jeopardy.

_Why would it? Keith is your friend. You’ve had lunch with him a bunch of times._

Lance shakes his head.

_He’s a gargoyle and I’m just bored and lonely and having nightmares._

And as logical as it is, he never is able to convince himself.

* * *

 

It doesn’t happen right away, but he does manage to sleep for a couple of hours and makes it down to the dining room in time for lunch. This time, Iverson is there to fuss over Lance like a mother hen.

“How’s your head?”

“Fine.”

“You didn’t land on it when you fell, did you?”

“No.”

“And you’re not feeling dizzy or lightheaded?”

“ _Iverson_.”

“I’m sorry, Your Grace. It’s just—”

“‘Your duty to ensure I’m safe’—yeah, I know,” Lance says, buttering a roll. “And I appreciate it, but I’m _fine_. It was just a little sleepwalking.”

Iverson frowns and cuts at his chicken. “I would just feel much better if you would let me send for a doctor.”

“I told you, I don’t feel sick or anything. There’s no need.”

Iverson grunts.

Lance sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Look, if I so much as sneeze, I’ll let you know and have you call for a doctor. Okay?”

“Hmph,” Iverson grunts again, but his frown is less severe than it was before, so Lance considers that a win.

 

For most of the afternoon, Lance successfully avoids the library, and by extension, the rose window tower. He thinks that he should detach himself from his little haven and work on his studies instead.

It works at first—after lunch, he practices archery on his own (despite Iverson’s pleas for him to rest), then writes a letter to Rachel at the desk in his room, and eventually finds himself walking among the gardens.  

The blooms look particularly bright and happy today after getting such a generous watering the night before and Lance smiles to himself. He’s always loved flowers, so much so that he studied the language of flowers all on his own, swept away by the quaint notion of sending messages through such a colorful gesture.

As he passes by pink roses for friendship and daisies for innocence, he feels suddenly weighed down. He finds a bloom of frankincense—”faithful heart”—and inexplicably feels guilty.

A memory flashes through his mind.

 

_“Wait!”_

 

Keith had said…”wait”.

Well, in the _dream_ anyway. But still, “wait” isn’t really something you’d say to someone you’re planning on hurting, is it? Maybe he judged Keith too harshly in the moment. Perhaps he had wanted to talk.

_He didn’t want anything because it was all in your mind!_

Lance runs a hand through his hair and kicks at the dirt beneath his feet.

“This is stupid,” he whispers, scowling at himself as he heads back for the castle.

 

Lance stomps his way through the halls to the library, determined to get some answers.  He needs to go back up to the tower and see Keith with his own two eyes again, his resolve to detach already crumbling.  

If it really was all a dream, then Lance needs to _know_.

It’s only been hours since Iverson found him passed out in the library, and even fewer since he decided to distance himself from the tower and its inhabitant, but he can’t stand the thousands of questions buzzing around in his head. If it was a dream, why was it so vivid? If it wasn’t a dream, how was it possible? Was he going insane? Or was the world filled with more magic than he thought? If Keith really was alive—was he a friend or an enemy?

Deciding he should be cautious—no matter the outcome—Lance takes a detour to the armory and grabs one of the swords Iverson brought from Nalquod for their training. Lance is a far better archer than he is a swordsman, but he’s no novice either.

He fastens the sword to his belt and walks with care, taking the time to glance down the corridors to avoid detection. Iverson would be less than pleased to see him up and about with a sword after collapsing on himself less than a half a day before.

He’s met with almost zero resistance on the fairly short journey to the library, though he was almost spotted by a maid dusting an ornate vase larger than herself in the hallway, but she was distracted enough that he was able to slip by.

When he finally gets to the bookcase-door, he feels a shudder of fear course through him like he’s about to go on stage and sing in front of thousands of people, but he swallows it down and pulls the secret lever.

The thing with the spiral staircase is that there are short days and there are long days. On short days, the stairs seem to climb themselves; Lance doesn’t notice nor mind the ascent as he heads to his secret hiding place. On long days, it’s the opposite—the stairs are endless and the exercise has Lance’s calves burning; his body aches and the top of the stairs can’t come fast enough.

Today is the latter.

Lance really wishes it isn’t though because every step fills him with more fear and adrenaline than before. He doesn’t know what’s waiting at the top of the tower anymore—it used to be a safe place for him to get away for a while, but now that’s gone. It might forever belong to some dangerous creature that could have every intention of dismantling him.  

 _You know more than enough to defend yourself_ , he thinks and ups his pace.

The wooden door is perhaps the scariest obstacle of them all as it’s the last barrier between him and whatever lies beyond it.

Inhaling deep, Lance flicks the hilt of his sword with his thumb so it’s ready for him to unsheath in a moment’s notice and uses his other hand to open the door.

It swings open with a loud creak and Lance immediately puts his hand on the hilt of his sword, but he doesn’t unsheath it, because there, sitting in the center of the room, is Keith—still as stone and facing the door like he was the previous night.

The sun, on its steady descent towards the earth, shines brightly through the rose window, causing Keith to cast a large, menacing shadow across the wooden floorboards.

Lance approaches the statue with slow, deliberate steps, his hand still on the hilt of his sword, but no matter how close Lance gets, Keith doesn’t move. He’s in the same, kneeling position he’s always in and his eyes stare ahead with just as much intensity as they ever have. It tempts Lance to drop his guard, to simply go back to the way he used to act around the statue—an imaginary friend and nothing more—but he’s still not convinced last night was a dream.

In fact, the longer he stays in the tower, the more he’s certain of it. Keith may not be moving, but he’s still facing the door instead of the window, and that’s how he was last night. There’s undeniably something off about the whole thing, so Lance stays vigilant.

When he approaches Keith’s statue he studies the face more carefully than he ever has before; he remembers the way his white, sharp teeth flashed with each strike of lightning outside, how his skin went from rough granite to smooth, purple skin, and how his eyes glowed yellow in the dark. It was unlike anything Lance had ever seen in his life and, truthfully, there’s a part of him that wants to see it again.

And maybe that’s why Lance does it—unclasping his hand from the hilt of his sword, Lance moves to touch Keith’s face again. He inches his hand closer and it takes an age for his fingers to make contact.

When they finally do, Lance is met with just cold stone.

Getting a little bolder, Lance touches the stone face in various ways, almost experimenting to see if there’s a particular trick to making him come to life, but Keith stays perfectly still.

Remembering how he touched Keith the previous night, Lance presses a palm to his cheek in the exact same spot as before. He rubs his thumb along Keith’s high cheekbones, then pulls his palm away to check if the granite underneath has smoothed into skin, but there’s no change—just hard, grey stone.

With a sigh, Lance takes his hand away and steps back from the gargoyle. Confused and conflicted, Lance looks down at the palm that seemingly brought Keith to life last night and narrows his eyes at it.

_What happened last night?_

* * *

 

That evening, Iverson makes sure to have dinner with Lance and is far too invested in both Lance’s day and what he’s eating. He decides on his own that Lance is too thin and that his sleepwalking would go away if he only ate more. He orders the wait staff to bring Lance two more helpings of coq au vin, which, of course, he doesn’t touch.

Annoyed by Lance’s ( _normal_ ) appetite, Iverson escorts Lance back to his room and insists he gets an early night’s rest.

“I’ll be keeping one of my men by your door tonight, just in case,” he says and Lance groans.

“ _No._ Iverson, I told you from the beginning that I don’t want a babysitter while I’m here. I’m twenty-one, not eight.”

“This isn’t a _punishment_ , it’s for your safety. Sleepwalking can be dangerous.”

Lance rolls his eyes. “I’m not gonna sleepwalk again.”

“How do you know?”

“I just know,” Lance says, but Iverson’s eyebrows knit in doubt. “Look, I’ll make you a deal. If you find me somewhere passed out tomorrow morning anywhere other than where I _should_ be passed out, then you can have a guard here.”

“But what if you _do_ sleepwalk?”

“I’ll be fine. I’m not made of glass.”

“No, but you are a _prince_.”

“Then listen to what I say.”

Iverson pauses, his eyes hard as he studies Lance until he eventually pinches the bridge of his nose and grumbles something indiscernible under his breath.  

“Fine,” he concedes. “But if you’re anywhere other than your bed come morning, a guard will be a permanent fixture out here.”

“You got it.”

Iverson huffs and straightens, his hands clasped behind his back in parade rest. “Sleep well, Your Grace.”

He bows politely and walks down the hall towards his own quarters, leaving Lance alone in the hall. Taking Iverson’s advice, Lance goes into his room and gets ready for bed.

* * *

 

_He’s back in the tower._

_And it’s a scene he’s seen before—a boy with black hair, reading a hefty book, sits at the bench along the rose window, one leg dangling off and swinging back and forth ever so slightly, while the other is folded on the bench. A single candle on a nearby table is the only light source as a heavy rain beats against the window and gusts of winds whistle loud enough to be heard inside._

_The boy sighs and closes his book gently, but not before he places a leather bookmark between its pages, and looks out the window. He can’t possibly see anything, since it’s the dead of night and any sliver of moon must be heavily covered by clouds, but he stares out anyway._

_And Lance feels an odd sort of melancholy for the boy, but isn’t sure why. There’s nothing particularly sad about the scene; it’s peaceful, even, but Lance can’t help but consider the boy a tragic figure._

_Proving him right, the boy jumps to his feet like he’s been bitten, the book he was so careful with before falling to the floor with a thump. Lance can’t make out the details of his face, but the look of panic is unmistakable as the boy’s hands are_ transforming _. The pale skin of his palms turn grey and course, while his nails elongate and sharpen into fierce claws. The boy lets out a gasp of horrified shock and Lance’s heart shatters at the raw fear in the sound._

_The boy makes a start to the exit but his legs move sluggishly, like he’s walking through quicksand, and Lance can see the transformation is starting in his legs as well. The boy looks down at his feet and no matter how fuzzy his face looks to Lance, there’s no denying the terror claiming his features as the sickness moves up and up to his legs, to his thighs, to his hips._

_With his final chance to use his voice, the boy lets out a low cry—a pitiful, crushing sound—and shouts, “What’s happening to me?!”_

 

Lance wakes with a gasp, the boy’s final words ringing in his head like they were yelled directly into his ear. He’s out of bed in less than a second—pulling on his boots, tucking in his shirt, and tossing on his navy blue night cloak. He lights and grabs the candle at his bedside table and rushes out the door.

There’s a heavy weight on his chest as he storms through the castle to the library; the boy’s terrified question repeats over and over in his mind and it quickens his step, hurrying him to the tower.

He’s not sure what good it will do, if he can even do anything once he gets there, but it doesn’t matter.

And perhaps he really is going mad, but he’s grown bored of worrying about it, so he follows all of his instincts that scream, “ _get to the tower!”_

His thoughts are as unconflicted as they’ve ever been as he reaches the bookcase-door and pulls the lever. He flies up the steps, urging himself to go faster every time he thinks he’s reached his limit, but somehow, he’s able to push past it every time.

He thinks of the boy, innocent and scared, and feels his chest twinge in pain. And that sound—the cry that came from the boy realizing he was turning to stone, that he was _dying_? Lance knows it’s a sound that will haunt him for years to come.

Right before he’s about to open the tower door he stops to think, really _think_ about what he’s doing. It’s all madness and he knows that, but the pull—that strong, visceral pull on his solar plexus that’s been tugging him up the stairs since he first opened the secret passageway—is begging him to forget his notions of sanity and just open the damn door.

He never was one to deny his instincts.

With a sharp, forceful yank, Lance opens the door and steps inside.

 

He knows something’s wrong immediately because _Keith isn’t there_ —his pedestal is, but the actual figure is gone, like he just hopped right off.

Lance doesn’t even have a chance to gasp or look for Keith before a strong, massive hand covers the entire bottom of his face. With incredible speed, a second hand grabs Lance’s free wrist and twists his arm up behind him in a lock. Lance drops his candle which skitters to the floor and extinguishes, leaving the tower completely dark except for the full moon casting light through the rose window.

Lance, trained in self-defense since he was a child, reaches for the hand at his mouth so he can pull it down in one swift, strong motion and angle his elbow for a groin shot, but he _can’t_. The wrist he tugs at won’t budge at all, even with Lance putting all of his adrenaline-fueled strength into it. He changes tactics and starts thrashing—his free arm trying to hit whatever flesh he can and his torso squirming as much as his hindered arm will allow.

“Stop, stop! Just—will you—just listen to me for a sec!” a frustrated voice growls, and the surprise of hearing a voice makes Lance still for just a moment.

Because he knows that voice—he’s heard it before.

In a dream.

Lance’s eyes slowly move all the way to the right and through his peripherals, he can see the vague outline of his attacker—a strong jaw, huge bat ears in a mess of hair, eyes glowing yellow like fireflies in the summer.

It’s _Keith_.

And he’s not a dream.

Lance’s eyes widen at the realization that he’s been caught by a walking gargoyle and he immediately panics, thrashing around even more despite the danger of dislocating his shoulder in Keith’s iron grip.

 _Stupid! You’re so stupid! You knew he was a threat. You had a sword when you came up earlier today and you didn’t_ bring _it?!_ Lance admonishes himself, frustrated at his own lack of foresight.

“Will you knock it off?!” Keith says into his ear right before Lance is about to slam the back of his head against Keith’s jaw. Keith dodges it easily and continues. “I’m not going to hurt you! If you would just—”

Lance kicks a leg at his knees like a bucking horse and Keith just barely sidesteps it.

“If you would just _listen_ —I don’t want to hurt you! I just want to talk, okay? Just settle down already.”

Lance continues his weak attempts at flailing and mumbles curses into Keith’s cold, hard hand as he sends him a glare with all the contempt he can muster.

“Look, I’m going to let you go, but you just need to stop and trust me! Please, Lance.”

And out of everything that has happened that night, this is the thing that shocks Lance the most—hearing his own name. His body relaxes and his eyes widen. He looks at Keith through his peripherals again and his eyes, even without pupils, look sincere and well...unthreatening.

Keith sighs as Lance stills. “I don’t have any intention of hurting you, okay? You came in with a sword earlier, so this was just a precaution. I know I probably look like something right out of hell to you, but I’m not—I wasn’t always like this. I was like you.”

Lance stares harder, thinking of the raven-haired boy in his dream.

“I want to let you go, but I need to know you’re not gonna come after me or scream, or something. So, just...I dunno, can you do that?”

Keith’s eyebrows are knit and his ears are slightly lowered—it almost reminds Lance of a dog that’s been caught chewing up the furniture. Lance stares at him for several moments, his chest heaving and his breath labored and fast as he mulls over whether to trust Keith or not.

 _You’ve gotten this far_ , he thinks.

Slowly, Lance moves his free hand to the one that covers his mouth and taps his fingers twice against it.

“Oh, okay—that’s um, that’s good. I’m going to let you go now, so uh…”

Keith’s grip loosens around Lance’s mouth and wrist and he backs away carefully, slowly. Lance immediately pivots so he’s facing Keith and he rubs at his newly freed wrist before looking Keith up and down.

He’s just as intimidating as he was last night—he towers over Lance by at least a half a foot, he has long canines, and his bare chest is as broad as a tree trunk.

But he also seems unbearably awkward, maybe even embarrassed.

They stare at each other in silence and eventually, Keith looks away and scratches at the base of his neck, ruffling the dark hair there.  

“How do you know my name?” Lance asks, breaking the tension in the air.

Keith rolls his eyes—or rather, his head moves to _suggest_ he’s rolling his eyes—and says, “I mean, you talk about yourself enough.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Lance asks with a slow blink. “Do I, uh, _know_ you?”

Keith grows sheepish and awkward again, his face screwed up into a grimace.

“I mean, I guess? You came up here to talk a lot so—”

That stops Lance dead, his heart stuttering.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on for just a minute. Are you telling me that this entire time that I’ve been coming up here to talk you—you heard me?”

“Well, yeah. I could see you too.”

“And you...remember all of it?”

“I think so.”

Lance stares dumbfounded at Keith and his mouth falls open. All that time that he thought he was speaking to dead air, all that time he felt like the statue was listening—it actually _was_.

He can’t respond or move, so he just keeps staring at Keith, who fidgets under his gaze. Eventually, Keith bends over to pick up the fallen candle and candlestick. Lance thinks he seems relieved in finding something to do.

“I have more matches, I think. I used to keep them in a desk up here—” he says, stopping himself short to find a waist-high piece of furniture covered in a dusty sheet. He pulls the sheet off to reveal a rotting, wooden desk and rummages through the drawers.

“Found them,” he announces, holding out a small matchbox. He walks over to their chess table near his pedestal, places the candlestick on it, and lights the candle.

Lance watches him smile at the small flicker of flame and he’s struck by how _human_ the expression is, like he really is a normal person trapped in a giant, demon body.

Keith sits on his pedestal and chances a look at Lance.

“Uh, do you wanna sit down or something?”

Lance blinks at the question—it’s so casual despite how absolutely ludicrous their situation is that Lance is shocked all over again. It takes a couple seconds, but eventually, he nods and sits at his usual chair. He watches Keith again, taking in all of the astounding details, because nothing about him should be real.

“Are you ever gonna stop staring?” Keith asks, annoyed.  

Lance shakes his head in disbelief. “Have you _seen_ yourself?”

“Uh, no. There’s no mirrors up here.”

“Oh,” Lance says, scratching at his temple. “Well, you’re uh...you’re _somethin’_.”

“Yeah, I can imagine,” he says, looking down at his palms and Lance suddenly feels guilty for bringing it up.

“Anyway,” he says, changing topics, “so you...remember everything I told you? About my family and the galra and the uh—” Lance’s face heats as he remembers he’s cried in front of Keith on multiple occasions. “The other stuff?”

Keith’s eyes don’t meet Lance’s when he says, “Yeah, yeah I do.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Must have been driving you nuts with all my rambling…”

Keith’s eyes flick up to meet Lance’s, something desperate in his expression.

“No! No, I—no, it was nice. I’ve just been behind that sheet for...a long, long time, so when you started coming up here every day, things were a lot less boring,” he says, sheepish once again. “I liked it.”   

“Oh,” Lance says, and the sentiment makes something warm bloom in his chest. “So, uh, how long is a long time?”

Keith’s face darkens and his eyes travel to the window. “I don’t know—what year is it?”

The question is weighted and it fills the air with a terrible sort of tension that’s almost suffocating. They both know the answer won’t be pleasant to hear.

“It’s 1762,” Lance says as gently as he can.

Keith’s eyes widen in a look of utter dismay before he buries his face into his palms, his elbows propped up by his thighs. Lance’s chest aches just like it would for any other friend he sees in pain.

He stays silent for a long time as it’s clear Keith is processing something pretty major, but after a while, he feels the need to check in.

“Keith?”

The sound of his name breaks him from his reverie and he looks at Lance with soft surprise. Lance wonders how long it’s been since he’s heard his name out loud.

“You, uh, you okay?” Lance asks.

Keith sighs, an undeniable sadness in his eyes. “It was 1712 when I—when this happened to me.”

Lance’s heart plummets—has Keith been trapped up here for _fifty years_?

“Oh, wow that’s...I’m really sorry,” Lance says, clearing his throat. Keith gives him a weak nod. “Uh, can you help me fill in some of the gaps? You were human before right? And then something happened to turn you into...this?”

Keith nods again.

“Okay, good to know. And were you able to move around and stuff? Or is that new?”

“New,” Keith says and he looks utterly defeated. “The first time I’ve moved since it happened was when you—y’know you—”

 _Touched your face like a weirdo?_ Lance thinks to himself and his face gets hot again.

“Oh, uh yeah. Right. What else? Do you know what happened to you?”

“I—” Keith starts, furrowing his brow. “A little. It’s been so long that I started forgetting things, but I know...I know that my friends found me up here and I think they talked about a curse and trying to break it, but I can’t remember any specifics. I don’t think they talked a lot around me.”

“Is that all?”

Keith sighs. “I remember them saying they had to give up for now, but I don’t know why.”

“And so you just...hung out here? For fifty years?”

“It didn’t _feel_ like fifty years. I dunno, everything just kind of blurred together, like I was dreaming or something, until…” Keith trails off, his eyes downcast.

“Until what?”

Keith crosses his arms and looks out the window again. With a shrug of his shoulders, he says, “until you showed up.”

“Oh,” Lance says and his stomach flutters for reasons unknown. “Um, what happened?”

“Well, you just...I don’t know. You pulled that sheet off of me and it was like I was awake again. That’s all. And then last night you touched me and I was able to move.”

Lance shakes his head and lets out a low whistle. “This is weird, man. This is really, really weird.”

“Believe me, I know,” Keith says.

“Wait, though,” Lance says, a thought just occurring to him. “I came up here earlier today and you were a statue again.”

Keith shrugs a second time. “Once the sun came up I got stuck again. Then, once the sun set—” Keith gestures to himself.

Lance stares in silence again, his mind barely able to process it all, and he runs his fingers through his hair.

This is a lot...and Lance still has so many more questions, but most of them he knows Keith can’t answer—why is he cursed? Who cursed him? Is it possible to break the curse? Why was Lance, of all people, the one who woke Keith?

Lance’s eyes find their way back to Keith. He’s looking out the window, hypnotized by the moonlit village below and Lance sees it again—the human behind the gargoyle mask. He can see it in the furrowed brows that slant in sadness. He sees it in the mouth that’s barely open like he’s desperate to speak after fifty years of silence, but the words aren’t coming to him. He sees it in the eyes that are so distinctly _not_ human and hide so much, it’s a wonder he can see anything in them at all.

But it’s there.

And it’s a face Lance knows well, has seen in his own reflection every day for the past month—a face of loneliness.

Lance feels an overwhelming sense of guilt for ever thinking this person, this _man,_ was a monster.  The notion seems ludicrous to Lance now that he sees Keith with such a vulnerable expression.

 _I want to help him_.

Lance tears his eyes away from Keith’s face down to the pedestal he sits on, and has sat on for decades.

It’s then that Lance sees it and _remembers_ —the small slate inscribed with fancy lettering on the pedestal.

An idea strikes Lance so hard and sudden that it makes him leap to his feet with a gasp. It startles Keith and he looks at Lance with his face clenched in annoyance.

“Keith!” Lance says, a devious smirk splitting his face and a twinkle lighting his eyes. “I think I get it.”

“Get what?”

“Why _I_ was the one who was able to bring you back to life.”

“And that is…?”

Lance’s smirk deepens. “I’m the one who can break your curse.”

 


	2. shade of the shadows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance begins his investigation into Keith's past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Sorry, it took so long to get this baby up! I've been working on multiple projects and doing a lot of work on my original manuscript so it takes me a bit to come back to certain projects. Good thing is once I updated my mlb au, I'll only have this fic and Dark Blue to focus on, so that'll be exciting. 
> 
> Big shout out to [Brigid](https://twitter.com/angst_in_space) for betaing!  
> This ch. is 22k words so have fun :)

**you build your tower (but call me home)**

_Chapter 2: shade of the shadows_

 

It should have been a simple thing—sneaking into the servants’ quarters, but as Lance is rapidly realizing, nothing in his life is ever simple. Since it’s the afternoon, he assumed none of the servants would be here. But of course, he hadn’t accounted for the fact that the servants take _shifts_ , that not all of them work at the same time, and when they’re off duty their likely place of rest would be in their _quarters_.

Lance is first almost caught when he’s walking down the stairs to the lower level of the castle as a full-bodied servant heads up wearing nothing but his slacks and soiled undershirt. Lance manages to slip into a hallway and press his back against the wall to avoid detection, but his heart thuds louds enough that he worries someone will hear it.

It’s annoying, having to sneak around in the castle you’re the prince of, but with Lance being underage and still under the guardianship of Sir Iverson, he doesn’t have any other options. Iverson is very particular in what activities he feels are appropriate and _not_ appropriate for a young prince to participate in. The latter is a much longer list than the former.

And raiding an old servant’s room to investigate the mystery of the enchanted Gargoyle in the attic is _certainly_ not on Iverson’s appropriate list.

Lance sneaks down the drab halls of the servants’ quarters, checking corners and staying light on his feet. The servants quarters feel like a completely different world than the grandeur of the rest of the castle. Everything down here is made of grey, solid wood that, while dependable, is dreary to look at with not even a cheery painting or two to lighten it up.

He’s struck with a familiar pang of guilt, one he’s had many times before when he remembers how lucky he is in all his affluence, but he pushes it down.

_You have work to do, Leandro. You have a curse to break._

Two female servants chat down the hall, both of them considering going apple picking for the cook on their next shift. As Lance stays pressed to the wall, his pang of guilt transforms into one of longing. He’d love to go apple picking.     

One of the girls sighs and remarks that it’s time for her to get back to work and that she’ll meet the other when she’s on. They say their goodbyes and Lance watches one of them leave to the upstairs and the other disappear into her room.

This is the hallway Lance has been looking for, the one Keith told him about.

 

 _“You’ve got to give me something, man,” Lance says, squinting at the inscription on Keith’s pedestal. “The poem makes no sense out of context. Like, who are ‘_ those that adore’ _? Why were you cruel to them?”_

 _Keith’s fangs flash and his wings twitch. “I wasn’t cruel to_ anyone. _I minded my own business.”_

_“Hmph. Have a hard time believing that since you obviously made someone mad enough to turn you to stone,” Lance says, a teasing smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. It earns him a look from Keith that’s nothing short of lethal._

_“I don’t know what it means!” Keith growls, tossing his hands in the air._

_It’s nearly midnight and they’ve been looking over the poem for hours, breaking it down and hunting for clues hidden in the words. All in all, it doesn’t say much._

 

_Keith, the Granite-Hearted_

_Passion and vigor, sword and bone,_

_cold and cruel to those that adore,_

_soul of stone, shape of stone,_

_released by the heart’s phoenix turn; it beats once more._

 

_The title and the “shape of stone” line make it pretty clear who the subject is, and it doesn’t exactly paint Keith in the warmest light. Phoenixes generally mean rebirth, so his heart has to be reborn? How do you breathe new life into a heart?_

_Lance shakes his head. “We’re missing something. We need to know who and why you were cursed. You can’t think of_ anyone _who would have it out for you?”_

_Keith crosses his arms and his ears flatten as he looks away._

_“I guess some of the other squires got jealous sometimes, but no one ever...I barely talked to anyone. Maybe I was a little cold, but I...never fought with anyone.” Keith’s face softens, the hard, annoyed edges of his expression blurring. “I didn’t know someone hated me enough to do this to me.”_

_Lance’s throat goes dry. At that moment, he’s pretty sure that whoever cursed Keith mistook his awkward shyness for coldness and it cost him greatly. And unfairly. Lance thinks of Luís and how a man with a knife hovered over his bed one night as he lay sleeping next to his wife. Luís has only ever been kind to people._

_“Maybe,” Lance starts, voice careful, the teasing bite of it gone now. “Maybe it’s not that_ you _were hated, maybe it’s how you made them feel that they hated.”_

_“What’s the difference?”_

_“The difference is...one’s about you and the other is about_ them _.”_

_They sit with this for a moment, Lance’s words hanging in the air with no response from Keith until there’s a flick from his left wing._

_“What does it matter?” he asks, a weight crashing on the last word that can only come from fifty years of unlived life._

_Lance inhales and straightens, squaring his shoulders. “I just don’t want you to think this was ever your fault, Keith. Maybe you accidentally hurt someone, but no matter what, what they did to you wasn’t justified.”_

_Keith snaps his head to catch Lance’s eyes and stares him down like he’s trying to pull a lie out of him, but Lance matches his gaze, resolute. Once Keith is satisfied, he gives Lance a curt nod._

_“What do you need from me?”_

_Tension melts in Lance’s shoulders and his smile reforms. “Information. Tell me about your life at the time. No detail is too small.”_

_“I…” Keith starts, his brow creased. “It’s fuzzy. I can see certain things so clearly and then others...for all I know I_ could _have been a terrible person.”_

_“I don’t believe that.”_

_“Why? You barely know me.”_

_“I just know,” Lance says, and they’re stuck in another staring contest. Lance sighs. “Look, this isn’t getting us anywhere. If you can’t remember much then I need to do some research. You used to work in this castle right?”_

_Keith nods. “I was training to become a knight.”_

_“Okay, then, there’s got to be some record of you somewhere, especially if you were a squire.” Lance rubs at the skin beneath his nose with his thumb. “Maybe I can find information on other squires at the time, your superior officers—”_

_“My room!” Keith interrupts._

_“What?”_

_“My room.”_

_“Your room?”_

_“I had a secret hiding spot in it. I kept things there when I wanted to keep them safe. No one knew about it except for me,” Keith says, his yellow eyes glowing a shade brighter._

_Lance’s eyebrows lift in dawning realization. “The castle’s been empty for_ years _. If you had anything, it’s probably still there!”_

_“Yeah!” Keith says, something close to a smile forming on his mouth._

_“Do you remember where your room was?”_

_Keith nods vigorously. “In the servants’ quarters. Room 11. There’s a loose stone on the floor under the window. Just left of center.”_

 

In the servants’ quarters. Room 11. There’s a loose stone on the floor under the window. Just left of center.

 

_It’s a start._

 

Lance repeats Keith’s instructions to himself one last time before he darts down the hall: _Servants’ quarters. Room 11. Loose stone on the floor under the window. Just left of center._

He goes into the hall, reading the bronze metal numbers on the doors as fast as he can, his eyes scanning for “11”. It feels like he’s searching for years when, really, it can’t be more than seconds, but he finds it. Right in the center of the hall—room 11. Door closed. Number rusted.

Lance places his hand on the bronze handle that matches the number and says a silent prayer to himself that it’s not locked and that no one is in there. He takes a sharp inhale and turns the handle.

The door swings open.

Lance does a quick search of the room with his head sweeping from side to side. Once he’s sure he’s alone, he quickly (but quietly) shuts the door behind him.

The room is small, _inhumanely_ small. There’s a single twin bed that takes up half of the room’s width and two-thirds of its length and a closet that's only as wide as a plank of the grey-wood paneling. Lance has never considered himself claustrophobic, but this place has him _reconsidering_.

The window, just like everything else in the room, is tiny, barely letting in enough sunlight to let Lance see what he’s doing. It’s advantageous in that finding the loose stone presents no challenge at all. The floor is made of dusty grey bricks with the grout an even dustier grey than the stonework. Cracks and gaps mar the grout and, in one case, cause a brick to be so loose, one can just lift it right from its designated spot. This brick is just left of center and Lance claws at its corner to get a grip on it.

He finally does and lifts the brick up and away, the brick lighter than he’s expecting as the bottom half of it has been chipped away so that the secret hiding spot can hold multiple small treasures.

As it is, Lance finds two such treasures—a sealed letter and a sheathed hand dagger. Lance’s heart stops, too excited and wrapped up in the discovery to work properly.

“Wow,” he breathes, gently brushing his fingertips against the soft, worn parchment of the envelope. He grabs the knife first, unsheathing it to find that it still looks sharp despite how old it is, like it was well maintained before it was hidden. Lance places it on the bed as he kneels in front of the hole and slowly reaches for the letter—the real prize. If Lance has learned anything from his novels, it’s that there is so much a letter can hold.  

Keith has given Lance his permission to go through any of the valuables he finds, not wanting to impede their investigation over sentimentality.

Still, Lance pauses as he looks over the little envelope. It’s nothing fancy—cheap parchment and even cheaper wax—but Lance can’t help but consider it as something beautiful and strange like it’s potential is amplifying its allure.

There’s no address, return address, or stamp on the envelope, just a red wax seal with no personalization present in the mold, a clear sign that the wax stamp was probably a communal one.

With a small inhale, Lance breaks the seal, feeling invasive as he does, but he ignores it in favor of pulling out and unfolding the letter.

The parchment on the inside is just as cheap as the envelope’s paper with handwriting Lance would call “vivacious” and Iverson would call “shameful” scrawling over the page in black ink.

 

_Dear Shiro,_

 

_Hope your travels to Olkarion have been pleasant. As promised, I’m writing to inform you of the castle’s status. For the most part, all is well. We have not experienced any break-ins nor any breach of security. Lady Aulumaine is well and seems to be in good health. She remains the castle’s number one priority, though we have not detected any threats to her._

_Other than that, there’s not much to say. Adam worries about sending a letter of his own, despite me telling him it wouldn’t cause suspicion. You’re both Arusian knights, why wouldn’t you exchange letters? Well, anyway...he wanted me to tell you he misses you and to come home soon._

_And I hope you come home soon too. I have something I’d like to discuss with you, but I’d rather not speak of it through letters. Don’t worry, I’m fine. I just...have found myself in a situation that I don’t know how to deal with. I think you’d know what to do._

_Sincerely,_

 

_Keith_

 

Lance reads the letter again. And then a third time. And then a fourth.

Something about the letter keeps him rooted to the spot, reading it over and over again. These are Keith’s words and Keith’s handwriting—it says so right under the valediction. _Keith._

Lance hasn’t doubted that Keith used to be a real human being, but he only realizes now that he wasn’t _sure_ he was when he has evidence that, once upon a time, Keith undoubtedly was one. Keith is just who he says he is—a cursed squire who worked in this castle fifty years ago.

Lance inhales and exhales on a sigh. He’s always been sympathetic to Keith’s situation, but the awfulness of it sinks into his bones now. This Keith had a life and people who cared about him. And it was all taken away.

Speaking of which…

He reads the letter again. Who is Shiro? Adam? Lance can surmise that they were Keith’s superiors, but what else? The letter is fairly formal and to the point, but the last half is also riddled with secrets and lingering questions. What did Adam want to hide? What did Keith need to speak of that he couldn’t over a letter?

Lance scratches his chin and folds the letter back into the envelope.

There’s nothing to do but ask Keith about it.

Night comes slowly as it always seems to now. It’s only been a couple days since Lance discovered Keith is more friend than foe, but every day has trudged on until he can finally run to the attic after the sun has sunk past the horizon.

Being with Keith is... _thrilling_. Not in just that he’s an animated grotesque with a personality and soul, but in the _kind_ of personality and soul. He’s quick-tempered and easy to tease, cocksure in his battle acumen, but insecure with his words. He’s a waltz of contradictions, which makes him vibrant and interesting to Lance. And despite the lack of working organs and running veins, he’s full of _life_.

Everything’s been brighter since they’ve become civil acquaintances, which leaves the days looking dull in comparison to Lance’s now colorful nights. It’s the lightest he’s felt in weeks, filling him with a relief like he’s taken a warm bath after hours of horse riding.

This day drags on longer than normal, though. All Lance wants to do is run up the spiral staircase and ask Keith hundreds of questions about the letter and dagger. He eyes the hallway that leads to the library every time he passes it and he looks out the window so much, Iverson has to whack the back of his head with a newspaper to wake him from his daydreaming.

At twilight, Lance can’t contain himself anymore. He rushes through the passageway and up the spiral staircase, his calves no longer burning because they’re so used to the exercise now.

When he reaches the attic, he sits himself on his usual chair, chin resting in his hand and impatiently waits for the last sliver of sun to disappear. He stares at Keith’s unanimated form, then out the rose the window. Then back to Keith. Then out the rose window.

“ _Ugh!_ Hurry!” Lance groans to no one and slumps in his seat. Patience is a virtue but it’s not one Lance possesses.

He looks back out the window again and knows full well he has at least a couple more minutes to go, so he finds Keith’s stash of candles and matches, then puts the lit candle on their chess table.

Lance smirks at the black and white pieces that are all aligned in their spot because it reminds him how _awful_ Keith is at chess. They’ve played multiple rounds the past couple nights and Keith is _abysmal_. He has some of the worst tunnel vision Lance has ever seen and only plays to the present, unlike Lance who can think five moves ahead.

It’s as Lance snickers over Keith’s recent tantrum involving a game where Lance checkmated him in under ten moves that the sun goes down. Lance’s attention is immediately ceased as he whips his head to watch Keith’s transformation.

It’s an odd, terrifying, _beautiful_ experience, watching Keith transform. It’s always the same—the stone melts away to the strange purple skin beneath before he slowly rises from his crouch to stand tall, shoulders back and chin up. His wings fan out in a satisfying stretch before his delicate eyelids blink open, like he’s just woken from a peaceful dream.

“Keith!” Lance yells before Keith’s properly woken up. His name startles him and he does a double take when he sees Lance, like he’s momentarily forgotten him. It dawns on him, though and with a groan he rubs at his eyes with the heel of his palm.

“Ugh, Lance, _what_?”

“I found something! In your old room!” Lance says, proudly holding up the knife and letter like a child presenting their drawing to a beloved adult.

This wakes Keith right up and pushes him off the pedestal to reach for the items Lance so gleefully shows him. He takes the knife and letter from Lance and his eyes bounce from one object to the other, not able to decide which one to inspect first. He takes a good, hard look at the dagger, recognition gleaming in his eyes and puts it on the table to inspect later. He looks to the letter next.

“Did you read it?” he asks. It’s a curious question, not an accusing one.

Lance nods. “Yeah! It wasn’t too personal or anything, though. I don’t understand half of it.”

Keith looks at Lance for a moment and then back at the letter. He turns it over in his hand, like he’s waiting for the envelope to give him permission to open it, but eventually, he sighs and takes the sheet out of the envelope.

Keith’s eyes roam the page like his eyes are starved for the words. When he reaches the end, he melts into a slow slump, all the air letting out of him. He rereads the letter again, this time slower, focusing on each word with careful precision. Once he finishes it for the second time, the hand holding the letter falls to his knee and his eyes seem to glaze over, despite their lack of irises and pupils. He goes so still, that it almost feels like he’s turned to stone again.

“Keith,” Lance says, his hand reaching out for Keith’s, but he pulls back.

“It’s fine,” Keith says. Short. Clipped.  

Lance can’t imagine what Keith is going through. It’s a hard situation to empathize with—a boy being trapped in his own body for fifty years, his entire life whooshed away by some magical spell until he ends up in a familiar place three generations later, but all the familiar faces gone. It must be horribly lonely. And that? That’s something Lance _does_ understand.

And he understands well enough to know that Keith is certainly not _fine_.

Lance sighs and doesn’t speak, searching for magic words to wriggle their way into his mind, anything that could make Keith feel better, but he’s not sure anything can make this better.

_Breaking the curse. It won’t fix everything, but it’s a start._

If he can get Keith to talk, focus on their task, maybe Lance can keep his demons at bay a while longer.

“Look—” Lance starts, shakey from the start. “You—you listened to me. Even though you didn’t have much of a choice, you did. And it...helped. Maybe it’ll help you too.”

“What?” Keith says again, the word cutting through the air like a small knife.

“Talking.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Keith.”

“There’s nothing to talk about. It’s just a dumb letter I forgot to send when Shiro was in Olkarion.”

“But who _is_ Shiro?”

“My superior.”

“That’s not all he was and you know it.”

“That’s my business.”

Lance groans in frustration, throwing up his hands. “What do you think I’m trying to do here? We can’t break your curse unless we know what happened and the letter reminded you of something. I _know_ it did. And you’re holding out on me.”

Keith crosses his arms and it’s a gesture Lance is recognizing as a habit of his. For a long moment they’re silent, Lance giving Keith the space he needs. He needs to go at Keith’s pace, but Keith also has to trust Lance. They have to compromise.

Lance’s patience is rewarded when Keith’s body uncoils with a sigh.

“Shiro is—was— _is_ like a brother to me. He took me off the street when I was a kid and let me become his squire. I owe everything to him.”

Lance is quiet, hoping his silence will encourage Keith further. When it doesn’t, he asks a question. “You loved him.”

It’s not really a question.

Keith nods anyway and closes his eyes, lost in a memory maybe. “He was a Commander. Everybody admired him. Probably the bravest person I know.”

“Seems pretty great.”

“Yeah, he was,” Keith says and Lance watches him frown at the past tense. Lance opts to change the subject.

“What about Adam?”

Keith bristles, his shoulders hiking up and the hair on his ears fluffing out. “What _about_ Adam?”

“The letter said he was worried sending letters would cause suspicion. Suspicion of what?” Lance asks, treading lightly.

There’s an odd flightiness in Keith’s eyes that makes him look like a cornered mouse and Lance’s eyebrow quirks up in question.

“N-nothing. It meant nothing.”

“It meant _something_.”

“No it—it’s nothing important.”

Lance narrows his eyes at Keith. “What did you do?”

“ _I_ didn’t do anything!”

“What did _they_ do?”

“Nothing!”

“What, were they planning a coup on the nobles who lived here or—”

“ _No!_ Shiro would never betray—”

“Were they smugglers? Bringing in illegal contraband to Arus?”

Keith growls. “They weren’t like that! They just—”

“They just?”

“Drop it, Lance. I’m done talking about this.”

“Keith, any detail you can tell me could help so—”

“It won’t.”

“What?”

“It won’t help. So just drop it. Shiro and Adam have nothing to do with this. They were just two knights who worked together.”

There’s a crackling energy in the liminal space between the two of them—both glaring and clenching their fists in silent challenge. An impressive feat for Lance who is about three heads shorter than his gargoylian friend. Still, in the end, it’s Keith’s victory.

Lance lets out a huff and sinks into his usual wooden chair. “Fine. As you wish.”

“Thank you.”

Keith does look genuinely grateful for Lance’s acquiescence and it soothes his wounded ego, if only a little bit.

“Tell me about the Lady A-Awl-u—?”

“Ah-lu-main,” Keith says, the name rolling off his tongue easily. “She was the noble lady who was staying with us for the season.”

Lance rubs his chin with his thumb and index finger. “Did you get along?”

“Well enough. She was kind from what I remember, which isn’t much if I’m honest. I don’t think we had much contact. I mostly stood out front the doors in rooms she was in.”

“Hmm,” Lance hums, fiddling with a queen piece on the chess board. “Don’t know if that’s much of a lead.”

Keith shrugs. “I’m not sure there’s anything of use in the letter at all.”

“Well, wait,” Lance says, focusing back on Keith. “What about the end of the letter? You said there was something you wanted to speak with Shiro about. What was it?”

The question makes Keith still again, his eyes searching in the air, mind reaching for a memory. After several beats, he shakes his head. “I don’t remember.”

Lance is beginning to think the things Keith doesn’t remember are the most important. He hums again.  “We really aren’t getting anywhere.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry?”

“I haven’t been much help.”

“Ah, Keith,” Lance says, an easy smile gracing his lips. “I never thought this was gonna be easy. What are you? Like seventy years old? Memory lapse is fairly common in old age, from what I hear.”

Keith scoffs, but Lance catches a smile behind it. “I’m sixty-eight, actually. Hardly old age.”

“Oh, my mistake.”

The teasing is easy, falling off of their tongues like water from a tipped pail. This is a pattern for them, Lance notices, an odd switch between legitimate disagreement and light banter that sends a spark of thrill in Lance’s veins. For the first time since Lance has entered the castle, he truly feels _alive_.

And that’s thanks to Keith.

Lance stands from his perch and takes a couple steps towards Keith, his hand floating to the knife and gently picking it up by its sheath.

“And this?” he asks, airy and light. Casual.

The tone doesn’t matter however, because the small amount of openness Keith afforded him just moments ago disappears, gone behind a slammed door. “Nothing. Just a knife I had on me.”

Lance knows better than to push it now, so he doesn’t and instead places the knife back on the table. He wants the tongue-in-cheek conversation back, wants the tease of Keith’s smile back.

But he also wants _leads_. “How old was Shiro? 50 years ago?”

The question makes Keith’s fur-lined ears perk and his eyes blink. “Five and twenty, I think. Why?”

Lance presses a knuckle to his lips in thought. 75. Old, but not too old.

“Did you ever think that maybe... _maybe_ , he’s still alive?”

Keith stills, the one hand that clutches his own bicep holding it so tight, Lance worries he’ll break himself. He shakes his hand. “He can’t.”

“Why not?”

“He’s—no, he’s too old.”

“I’d wager most people live past 75. For all we know, he could be alive and nearby.”

“But we don’t know that.”

“We could find out.”

“No, Lance, I don’t want you to.”

“But, _why_?”

Something unintelligible flashes through Keith’s yellow eyes, but if Lance had to guess, he’d say it’s fear.

“What good would it do?” he finally asks, not looking at Lance.

“He might know something, _obviously_ ,” Lance says, arms splayed out in annoyed admission. “And he might remember the things you can’t.

“But you don’t know he’s alive. He could have died.”

“We won’t know until we check!”

“And if you check and he’s dead, what then, Lance? What then?” Keith asks, voice shaken with anger and Lance is starting to put the pieces together. He approaches Keith slowly, cautious in the same way he would if he were to approach a wounded sparrow.

“You’re afraid to find out if he’s dead,” Lance says, gentle as he lays a hand on Keith’s wrist. He takes it as a good sign when Keith doesn’t move away.

Keith’s eyes flick to Lance’s, but they’re back on the ground again in a flash. When he speaks, it’s so quiet, Lance is only able to hear it because of how close they are. “If you find out, then that’s it.”

It’s vague, but Lance understands it enough.

“Keith, I know this is an impossible situation, but it’s just as likely he’s alive that he’s dead. Let me check for you. Maybe you’re scared to know now, but I promise not knowing will drive you mad.”

Keith takes his free hand and rubs at his eyes with his thumb and index finger, the gesture steadying him. “They were so young, the last time I saw them all.”

“I know,” Lance says, tracing his thumb over Keith’s wrist as a comforting gesture. “I imagine...I imagine this is all very painful being out of your time like this, but…” Lance trails off, gathering his thoughts before he takes a deep inhale. “But this is your time now. This is your _life_ now and I think—honestly, Keith—I think you need to _know_ , so if is the worst case, you can move on. Get closure. You can’t do that by never letting yourself know. Plus, if he _is_ alive…”

“I don’t want to hope, Lance.”

“Fine, don’t. But I know you would hate yourself if you knew you could have spent more time with him but didn’t because you were scared.”

Keith stares at Lance for a long, hard moment, like he’s searching for the path his blood makes to his heart, until, eventually, he sighs. “Fine. You can check. If only to see if he knows anything.”

Lance takes his hand back and his face cracks in a smile. “I’ll start my research tomorrow then.”

It’s almost a little _too_ easy to convince Iverson to let him raid his office for old ledgers and documents from the castle’s glory days. He’s been saying for weeks that Lance’s time is better spent on the ground rather than in the clouds where he usually is with his many novels, so when Lance asked, Iverson _almost_ smiled.

“Be careful not to disturb any of my paperwork, Your Grace. I like an organized workspace,” Iverson says as he unlocks the door to the office, opening it for Lance.

“I’ll steer clear of your desk altogether,” Lance says, eyeing the office. It’s small, considering how massive the castle is—a square room with a blocky wooden desk in the center, and shelves of books locked behind glass doors line the walls. “Bit cramped.”

“It’s more than I need. Here,” Iverson says, dropping a small brass key in Lance’s hands. “Opens the cabinet doors. Found it in the desk our first week.”

“ _Perfect_.”

“Well, have at it. Don’t be late for supper,” Iverson says and with a proper bow, he leaves Lance to his own devices.

Truthfully, Lance is only a few ledgers in before he starts to get _bored_. Researching a knight who used to work in the castle requires hunting for one name in a sea of thousands and it tries Lance’s limited attention span to its brink.

He doesn’t stop though, telling himself to turn one more page, scan one more name. If he wants to help Keith then he needs to follow this trail until it goes cold. If that means searching every single dusty book in this ill-ventilated room, then so be it.

It takes a couple hours, but finally, Lance stumbles upon a grouping of books labeled “Castle Tenants” and a span of years underneath. Lance hurriedly pulls out the one with the year “1708-1713” on its spine and digs through its contents.

The names are in alphabetical order and as Lance run his fingers along the names, looking for “S”, but he stops at “K”.

Because there, in an elegant black script is Keith’s name and only that. No last name. No title. Just “Keith”. A one syllable word for a one syllable note. Who must he have been before the castle to afford him only one name?

A hammer strikes a string in Lance’s heart like a plucked key on a piano, the feeling sharp and reverberating. Looking at Keith’s singular name on the ledger...it’s all he needs to know that his life has always been tragic.

It stokes a fire in Lance, something changed in him. He _will_ help Keith. He’ll help Keith if it’s the last thing he does.

Lance sighs and traces the name one last time with his finger, then flips a few pages to the “S”s. There, in the same elegant hand, is one “Shirogane, Takashi”. It doesn’t provide much information, just that he did indeed live in the castle in 1708, how much was taken from his wages for his room and board, and his title “Knight of The Court, Commander”.

Lance pores over the ledger to each subsequent year, always finding Keith and always finding Shiro until—

Until he lands on the year 1713. It shouldn’t be a surprise, but Lance’s stomach sinks nonetheless when Keith’s name has been left out of the “K” section. Shiro’s name, however, remains.

And Lance finds himself wondering what to even _do_ with this information. This ledger is the last one, and all he has to show for it is that Shiro stayed in the castle the year after Keith was cursed. It doesn’t help him find Shiro at all.

Lance closes the ledger and closes the cabinet door, locking it back in place, and rubs at his aching neck. He’s been bent over the books for so long that his spine is revolting.

He gets back into the search, the sight of Keith’s lone name searing a brand into Lance’s heart. He looks at each book, spine by spine for anything of use.  He’s just about to give up when he finds it—a book labeled “Correspondence”.

Intrigued, Lance unlocks the door and takes it off the shelf, dust flying off it as he does. He coughs as the dust finds a way into his passageways, but despite that he brings the book to Iverson’s desk to examine.

It’s a more traditionally shaped book, taller than it is wide and in direct contrast to the ledgers. It’s clear it's been scrapped together, the contents of the pages somehow adhered to the pages that are connected to the spine. The contents in question are hundreds of letters of business all addressing someone named Mr. Smythe, who, by all accounts must have kept the castle.

Lance reads through the first few, dull as it is, and picks up scraps of how life once was here—Mr. Smythe was always requesting the furnishings be made finer, there were more parties and balls than the poor man could keep track of, and plenty of nobles requesting to stay at the castle for the autumn season.

They start to blur together, and Lance stops trying to take in the content and instead just skims, looking for Keith or Shiro’s name.

The first one he finds is from an Olkarion Commander named Ryner.

 

_Dear Mr. Smythe,_

 

_I hope this letter finds you well. It has been many years since I have been so fortunate as to visit the lovely forests of Arus and I do hope that the apple trees are as fruitful as ever._

_I realize this may be a bit of an inconvenient inquisition, but I was hoping to speak with you about your Commander Knight, Mr. Takashi Shirogane._

_As I’m sure you’ve heard, I will be retiring in the coming year and the King and Queen are anxious that I find a fitting replacement. I’m afraid I find no one quite suitable in my own guard, but Mr. Shirogane’s reputation has reached even Olkarion._

_If at all possible, the King and Queen would like to meet your Commander, possibly to swear him in as their own._

_Again, I realize you’re sure to loathe the loss of such a fine soldier from your ranks, but the Castle of Arus is a lodge, not a castle with a Royal Court. His pay and lodgings would be far finer than there, just by way of the prestige of the position. I say this not to demean the castle, but only in hopes you understand what a fine opportunity it would be for your young Commander._

_If he is interested, please send notice my way at your earliest convenience. Thank you._

 

_With warm regards,_

 

_Commander Ryner of Olkarion_

 

Lance immediately turns the next page to find another letter from Commander Ryner, this one much shorter and only really saying how excited she is that Shiro agreed to meet with the King and Queen.

_So, Shiro was likely going to leave the castle? To a place as far as Olkarion?_

Olkarion takes weeks to get to from Nalquod, it would take over a month from Arus. You don’t go on that kind of trip without seriously considering the offer. And why wouldn’t he? It seemed like they planned to compensate him well.

Lance chews at the fingernail on his thumb. This is bad. If Shiro lived the rest of his days in Olkarion, it would be a nightmare corresponding with him.

There are few letters left after the one from Ryner and nothing interesting in any of them until the very last one, once again from Ryner.

_Dear Mr. Smythe,_

 

_I am so very sorry to hear about the tragedy that befell one of your squires. When we got your letter, Mr. Shirogane was quite unwell. I was afraid he was going to faint. He told me the squire was his and one he’s known since he was a child. It truly is such a horrific thing to happen to someone so young._

_Mr. Shirogane left Olkarion yesterday and I am sure he will reach you before this letter does. The King, Queen, and I all suspect that this will weigh heavy on Mr. Shirogane and his decision to take up employment with us or not. Of course, we plan to give him all the time he needs to grieve, but please inform him that, once he’s ready, the offer still stands and we would love him to be part of the Royal Court._

_Again, I send my condolences to you and your staff. I can not imagine what you all must be going through. Thank you._

 

_With warm regards,_

 

_Commander Ryner of Olkarion_

 

Lance’s blood turns to ice in his veins. The letter can only be talking about Keith’s...disappearance? Death? He’s not sure how it might have been advertised, but it’s clear that it was morbid enough for word to get all the way to Olkarion.

Lance thinks of Shiro, of his life brimming with good fortune and success, and as he’s pushing his life forward, his squire is ripped from him. No, not squire. _Brother._

By the way Ryner describes Shiro’s state after finding out, Lance can tell he cared for Keith just as fiercely as Keith cared— _cares_ —for him.

Despite the tragedy of the letter, a prickle of elation forms in Lance’s stomach. Because this is a clue _and_ there’s a chance Shiro might be closer than he once thought. If Shiro is as much of a legend as Ryner implies, then surely, someone in this town must know him, must have heard whispers of where he is now.

And Lance only has one way of catching whispers and only one person who can help him with it—Iverson.

A low, deep groan reverberates in Lance’s throat as he pinches the bridge of his nose. He should have known it was inevitable, that he’d have to reach out to Iverson at some point during his quest to free Keith, but he hoped it wouldn’t happen so soon.

Throwing his had back in resignation, Lance pouts, but then rights himself. He grabs a quill and a sheet of parchment and lists out his argument and talking points. He’s going to need it.

“You’re not eating.”

“I’m eating.”

“You’re moving your food around on your plate to make it look like you’re eating,” Iverson says, pointing his fork at Lance’s plate. “Is your meal unsatisfactory?”

The maid and the cook, both standing by in case Lance or Iverson need anything, visibly stiffen.

“No, no! It’s delicious, really. Just uh...I have a lot on my mind.”

Which is true. Lance has been so focused on figuring how best to introduce the idea of sending scouts out for information on Shiro that he completely forgot that he’s at dinner and should be eating.

Iverson quirks an eyebrow at him. “What,” he starts, the first word so heavy that Lance shrinks, “could possibly be on your mind?”

Well, so much for casually slipping it into conversation.

Lance scratches the back of his head, his hands wanting for something to do. “Oh, I was, uh, just so... _enraptured_ by the ledgers and documentation in the office and it made me curious. The way a castle is run—fascinating, isn’t it?”

Iverson looks downright suspicious now, his fork and knife both lowered at either side of his plate. “It _is_ fascinating, but you’ve never thought so. What exactly brought on this change of heart?”

Lance is ready for this question and has his answer prepared on his lips before Iverson even finishes it. There’s only one way he’ll get Iverson on board with this.

“Since I’ve become the prince of my own castle, of sorts,” he says before taking a forkful of his dinner, pausing to let the line sink in, give Iverson enough time to bite.

“Is that so?” Iverson asks and Lance can hear the genuine interest in his voice. The corners of Lance’s lips pull into a small smile.

“I’m going to have my own one day. Father’s going to make me Duke of some province when he feels I’m ready and I guess I just want to start preparing. It takes a lot of work.”

Iverson is impressed; Lance can tell by pull of his eyebrows and setting of his mouth. He nods. “That’s true enough.”

Lance straightens his spine and rolls back his shoulders. “I was particularly interested in setting up the royal guard. A castle is only as good as its knights.”

Lance nearly winces at himself; he’s laying it on too thick and Iverson seems to agree as he eyes him suspiciously.

“Your guard is essential yes, but when that time comes, I will likely maintain your guard or I’ll assign a commander to do that for you.”

“But shouldn’t I know how? What if, god forbid, the castle is under siege? I’d have to protect it!”

“That is the job of the commander, Your Grace.”

“Iverson,” Lance sighs. “I would _like_ to learn more about maintaining a guard. I’m sure that’s a perfectly princely skill, even by your standards.”

“So, what? You want me to incorporate it in our lessons?”

“I’d _love_ that.”

As Iverson cuts into his steak, he shrugs. “I guess I can work something in. The basics, at least.”

“Thank you, that would be amazing. Honestly.” Though it’s not that honest.

Iverson nods. “I’m just glad you’re becoming interested in your duties. I’m sure your father will approve.”

“Oh, I’m sure he will,” Lance says with a little cough, a bad segue into the question he _really_ wants to ask. “Y’know, when I was looking through the documents upstairs, I found an interesting assortment of letters.”

“That so?” Iverson asks, more interested in his steak than the topic.

“Apparently, the Commander Knight who ran this castle before it shut down was legendary. Really well-respected, ran a tight ship, deft with a blade.”

Iverson hums through his full mouth.

“The letters just sort of stop before I could figure out what became of him,” Lance says, his mouth going dry from nerves. “But I bet a legend like that...well, I’m sure _someone_ knows what happened to him. It would be interesting to find out.”

Iverson stills and after a hellishly long minute, he puts down his utensils and stares Lance down. Lance tries to hold his gaze, but he crumbles under the weight of it and instead looks at his messy dinner plate.

“You’re not _really_ interested in maintaining a guard, you just want the end of your story,” Iverson says, the level of certainty in his tone hitting Lance with a pang of guilt.

“No, no. I _am_ interested, but I was hoping, if Shiro—that’s his name—if Shiro still lives nearby, I could speak with him? But only as a means for my education of course!”

“No, absolutely not,” Iverson says calmly and goes back to his food.

“ _Iverson!_ ”

“You know as well as I do that you can’t leave this castle. The Galra empire has no shortage of resources and for all we know there’s a spy drinking in every pub and hotel in town,” Iverson says, gesticulating with cutlery in hand. “The whole point of being here is to keep you hidden. I can’t have you traipsing around in broad daylight where you could be recognized by anyone. I have a _duty_ , Your Grace.”

“It doesn’t have to be in daylight, we could go in the evening!”

“You could still be recognized.”

“I’ll wear a hooded cloak!”

“I won’t risk it.”

“ _Please_ , Iverson, this is important.”

“Why?”

Lance blanches. So much for playing it casual.

“It—” he starts, throat tightening. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Either it’s important or it doesn’t matter, It can’t be both.”

Lance’s hands squeeze into tight balls on his thighs and he glares at his plate. “It is important, but it’s not important you know why.”

“Keeping secrets, are we?” Iverson asks in a dreadful way, almost sounding hurt and Lance glances up at him. “You are right about one thing, Prince Lance. It doesn’t matter what the reason is, because nothing is going to convince me to let you leave this castle before the King and Queen send for you.”

And Lance has had enough. He raises abruptly, pushing away his plate as his chair screeches against the hard floors. He storms off and ignores Iverson’s orders for him to sit back down.  

* * *

 

Lance doesn’t visit Keith that night. He’s too embarrassed by his failure to face Keith and tell him that he’s already hit a dead end. He feels like a child—throwing a tantrum because he can’t get what he wants, but powerless to do anything else but whine about it.

What kind of prince can’t even speak to the people?

Frustrated and ashamed, Lance locks himself in his room, hoping a full night’s rest will give him a brilliant idea in the morning.

But sleep only brings him a fitful night full of dreams.

 

_It’s simple really—he sees green flames on a stone hearth being stoked by elegant hands making elegant gestures. He hears the mutterings of a language he doesn’t recognize. He sees the same hand placing itself atop another, bigger hand._

_He sees the bigger hand slip from beneath the elegant_ _one._

It’s pain that wakes him, fresh and alive in his chest like he’s been stabbed through with a sword. Lance clutches at the bit of sleep shirt in front of his heart, breathing hard and he tries to steady his rapid pulse. He keeps having dreams like this, but he doesn’t know why. Are they from stress? Are they premonitions from the gods? An active imagination? They feel important.

Lance’s thoughts are disrupted when he hears a sharp few knocks at his door. Grateful for the distraction, he opens the door only to feel his body burn with annoyance at the sight of Iverson.

Iverson, however, doesn’t look as stoney as usual. In fact, his one good eye looks at Lance softly, almost gently.

“What?” Lance asks, caught off guard.

From behind his back, Iverson produces a sealed envelope. “From the Queen.”

Lance’s eyes go wide as he looks down at the letter, hardly believing it. It’s been over a month since he’s heard word from anyone.

Lance snatches the letter from Iverson and opens it right away, part of him scared that if he doesn’t read it fast enough it’ll turn to ash in his hands.

The paper is creamy and soft, an expensive stationary only a Queen could afford, and her graceful penmanship is immediately recognizable. Lance’s breath catches as he reads.

 

_My Dearest Leandro,_

 

_Oh, before anything, I must tell you how much I miss you. These halls are far too quiet and far too dark without your laughter and smiles to address it. Your father is so very busy these few weeks, but he wants me to assure you how much he loves and misses you as well. We’re quite forlorn without our children. I keep assuming I’ll see you all at dinner and my heart breaks every time I remember I won’t._

_Second, I want you to know that all of your brothers and sister safely made it to their destinations. I can’t say much about it in case this letter gets intercepted, but rest easy, my love. Your family is well._

_Lastly, I’m afraid it will be more time still before you can come home. Your father is negotiating, but it seems the solution will be harder to come to than we anticipated. I wish I could tell you how long it’ll be, but we just don’t know. The Galra are stubborn and are set on taking our country for their own. Oh, Leandro, I’m terrified it’ll come to war. The King is doing everything in his power to avoid that, but I do want you to be prepared. As much as it pains me to say it, you might be at your location for quite some time._

_I know you hate being far from home as much as I hate you being from home, but I know you are strong. Stronger than I, for sure, and I know you will make the best of a bad situation until we have this sorted._

_With Endless Love,_

 

_Your Mother_

 

As Lance reads, he gravitates towards his bed and sinks into it. His heart shrinks in his chest and he can’t move, can’t take his eyes off the paper.

A few of his mother’s phrases repeat in his mind— _more time still before you can come home_... _taking our country for our own…_

_War._

Eventually, Lance buries his head in his hands, the paper tickling his ear from where  he holds it between his fingers.

Footsteps make the old wood floor creak and he knows Iverson is near him.

“I’m sorry, Your Grace,” he says, voice careful, but Lance doesn’t look up. Lance’s letter was sealed so she must have sent one to Iverson too.

“War, Iverson. _War_.”

“I know.”

“Can I reply back?” Lance asks, hands falling away. He can’t do anything, but he’d at least like to console his mother in any capacity.

Iverson stares at Lance, clearly debating on how he’ll say what he needs to say, but that’s answer enough as it is.

“Can’t even send a letter to my mother…” he mumbles.

“It’s just that the King has requested to keep correspondence low. If the letters get intercepted…”

Then they could trace it back to where they are. Lance takes a deep breath.

“Of course. We can’t have that.” He doesn’t mean for the words to come out as bitter, but they do.

“Your Grace—”

“I want to be alone. If you don’t mind.”

Iverson straightens, his hands folding behind his back. “Of course, sir. We’ll cancel lessons for today.”

“Thank you.”

Iverson nods and leaves Lance alone to lay in his bed for several more hours.

* * *

 

By the time Lance finally emerges from his room, the sun has set. He should probably get dinner, but he can’t stomach sitting at a lonely table. Not tonight.

Instead, he heads for Keith’s tower. Lance is going to have to explain that he can’t do anything for him, but after what happened today, he knows he has to tell Keith _now_. The longer he waits, the longer Keith has to garner hope, and Lance is terrified of those hopes being destroyed.

 _This isn’t the end all, be all,_ he reminds himself. _Once you’re out of hiding, you can talk to anyone you want._

It’s a small comfort, but a comfort nonetheless. There’s no time limit to breaking the spell. Besides, Keith has already waited fifty years. He can wait a few more months.

_He shouldn’t have to. He’s done his waiting._

Just like that, Lance is overcome with guilt again. Keith has been through so much, even before he was cursed. He shouldn’t have to be patient while Lance’s country gets their affairs in order.

He trudges his way through the castle, his dread growing the closer he gets when he’s stopped.

“Your Grace.”

Lance turns towards the voice and sees Iverson coming up the hall he’s passing. He stops out of courtesy, but he still hasn’t quite forgiven Iverson yet and annoyance burns warm in his belly.

“Iverson,” Lance says, trying not to sound too cold.

Iverson bows, unaffected by Lance’s less than cordial greeting. “We missed you at dinner.”

“I wasn’t hungry.”

“And now? I could get the cook to make you something.”

“No, I—I don’t have much of an appetite.”

“Oh,” Iverson says, shifting the weight on his feet. “Well, if you’re ever desperate in the night, the cook left out some fruit and bread for you in the kitchen.”

“I’ll be sure to thank him,” Lance says and continues his trajectory to the library.

“Your Grace.”

Lance stops again, but doesn’t turn back; he just cranes his neck over his shoulder to let Iverson know he’s listening.

“I don’t think—there shouldn’t be any danger in letting one of the servants ask some questions. I’ve sent Florona to ask around the locals about this Takashi Shirogane while she’s in town getting ingredients. I know you’d rather meet him but—”

Lance cuts Iverson off with a tight hug around his middle, squeezing hard. “Thank you thank you thank you!”

Iverson’s eye widens but when Lance pulls away he can see the faint hint of a smile on his lips. With a huff, he put a hand on top of Lance’s head and ruffles his hair.

“Don’t say that too loud. The others will think I’m going soft.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone,” Lance says with a crooked grin.

* * *

There’s a considerable amount of pep in Lance’s step as he climbs the tower to the rose window attic once again and when he reaches the door, he all but bursts in.

“Keith!”

He’s sitting on the bench that runs along the window, face looking out to the night sky with the iridescent moon casting a shimmering, low light on him that makes the scene look like something right out of a painting.

For some reason, it’s also hauntingly familiar.

Lance is almost sorry he disturbed the image when Keith turns to him, yellow eyes wide and searching. Then, in an unprecedented move, Keith _smiles_.

Lance stops. Not just his legs but his heart too. For an instant, just for an instant, Keith looked so convincingly human that Lance thought the curse was somehow broken.

“You came back,” Keith says, hopeful and sweet.

Lance feels like someone’s kicked the air right out of his lungs.

“Of course I did,” Lance says, just as confused as he is enraptured by Keith in that moment. “Why wouldn’t I?”

Keith’s smile fades and he looks at his lap. Lance curses himself instantly for not being more careful with that butterfly smile—beautiful, but skittish—and takes a tentative step forward.

“Nothing. You just—you weren’t here last night and I guess I just thought...well, it doesn’t matter.”

Lance’s heart sinks like a stone in a pond. He let Keith worry for a whole night that he wouldn’t come back, that he had abandoned him.

“Oh, Keith, no. I’m sorry. It wasn’t anything you did. Something happened…”  

Keith perks at this, his bat ears twitching. “What?”

Lance sighs, the cold memory of his mother’s letter washing over him and he sits across from Keith on the other side of the bench.

“I got word from my mother,” he says simply, looking out the window to admire the same moon Keith was just moments before.

“Is everything alright?”

“Everyone’s safe, as far as I know, but there’s been no progress on negotiations and I still have no idea when I can go back home.”

Keith doesn’t respond. Instead, he quietly watches Lance and something underneath Lance’s skin _itches_.

Eventually, just when Lance thinks he can’t handle the silence any more, Keith says, “You’re upset.”

“I’m not thrilled, no,” Lance says with a noncommittal shrug.  

“Is it your family? Do you miss them?”

“It’s—it’s not _just_ my family. It’s my family, my friends, my castle, the dinners at the table, my dog, my...my _freedom_. Everything _._ ”

Again, Keith is quiet, absorbing Lance’s words until he nods. “I know what that’s like.”

“Oh, no, Keith, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“No, stop. I’m not—I’m not trying to play ‘who has it worse’ with you I just...I know what it’s like to be—” He stops, searching for the word. “ _Bound_ by your duty.”

Lance looks at him then and cocks his head to the side. “What do you mean?”

“When you become a squire, there’s a lot you have to give up. You have to live at your station so you can go years without seeing your family, you’re not allowed to marry until you retire, you don’t get to go where you want to go. Your whole life is about serving the crown.”

“That’s barbaric! Every knight in Nalquod gets time to visit their families and we certainly don’t keep them from _marrying_.”

Keith shrugs. “That’s how it was back then. How could we give our lives to the King if we also had a spouse and children relying on us?”

“God, Keith, why’d you even want to be a Knight?”

“Honestly, it was either that or spend the rest of my life stealing food off of street carts and praying I’d never get caught.”

“Keith—”

“It’s fine, Lance. I _liked_ being a squire. I didn’t have a family to miss and I never planned to marry, so I didn’t feel the burden as much as Shiro or the other squires did. I had a hot meal every night, a warm bed, and a respectable position. It was more than I ever could have hoped for.”

Lance’s chest feels heavy. He knows that what Keith is saying makes sense, but it’s all so stained in tragedy, in the better of two evils. And for some reason, the fact that Keith never planned to marry hits Lance particularly hard. It’s always been a great dream of Lance’s to have a romance so magnificent it could be written down, but he supposes he’s always had the luxury to dream that way. Keith hasn’t.

“Maybe it was more than you could have hoped for, but it wasn’t more than you _deserved_.”

Keith straightens, his face unreadable as he stares at Lance. Lance keeps waiting for him to say something, but he doesn’t.

“ _What?_ ” Lance asks, finally.

Keith blinks, almost surprised, like he’s waking from an immersive dream. His clawed fingers twitch near his thighs.

“It’s just...I’ve never met a noble like you. The way you treat me, it’s like…” He trails off and Lance’s stomach turns so hard he’s worried he’ll be sick. He’s not exactly sure what he said that was so offensive, but the idea of somehow using his status as a prince to look down at people is a personal nightmare of his.

“Like what?” he asks, terrified of the answer.

“Like we’re  _equals_ ,” Keith says, and not with a hint of irony. “Even when I was just a statue, you treated me like I was—I don’t know— _more_. On your level.” He shakes his head. “People didn’t treat me like that when I was human, let alone when I turned to stone.”

Lance releases the tension in his body with an exhale, part of him relieved and another part of him full of sorrow for the poor boy in front of him. They haven’t known each other long, but already, Lance wants to give him the stars, wants to pay penance for what the world has done to him.

“We _are_ equals. I have a high title, I know, but it doesn’t make me _better_ , just lucky. You’re human, I’m human. I treated you like you’re on my level because you are.”

Keith shakes his head. “No, Lance, you’re important. You’re in the line of succession for a crown—”

Lance cuts him off with a laugh. “Yeah, _fifth_ in line. I’m about as close to the throne as you are when it comes right down to it.”

“There are assassins after your family. If they get to your brothers and sisters—”

“Don’t.”

The air in the room suddenly goes cold. Lance hadn’t meant to snap, but the prospect—the sheer _idea_ of—well, it’s too much to bear.

They’re silent for several moments, Lance studying his knees and unsure of how to break the awkward tension he’s created.

It’s Keith who speaks first. “I’m sorry. I...Shiro told me before I can be insensitive.”

Lance takes a breath and shakes his head. “No, it’s okay. It’s not like I haven’t thought it myself, but I don’t think I could live in a world without my family. I’ve never, not in my whole life wanted to be King, because it would mean something terrible has happened to all of them. I’ve been taught my whole life how to be King, ‘ _just in case_ ’, y’know? And I hated it. I hated preparing for my family’s death. But it’s my duty.

“It’s my duty to flee my country. My duty to hide here. My duty to _survive_. But your duty? Yours was to _protect_. To fight. If anything, I’m not on _your_ level.”

Lance’s cheeks heat when he realizes how much he’s said, how much he’s _revealed_. It’s becoming a nuisance how easily he slips up and offers information to Keith, almost compulsive how the words just slip out of him.

Keith is staring at him again, his sharp features twisted in confusion again, looking at Lance like he’s an abstract painting he’s trying discern the meaning of. The heat in Lance’s cheeks burns hotter.

“You’re so…” Keith starts, baffled and searching for a fitting word. “ _Weird.”_

Lance can’t help it; he laughs a big belly laugh, throwing his head back and the sound bounces off the walls.

“Why are you laughing?” Keith asks, half annoyed and half amused.

Between giggles, Lance says, “Because you’re weird too.”

This pulls another butterfly smile from Keith and Lance’s chest swells with pride that he was able to pull it from him, even if it flits away a moment later.

When Lance’s laughs subside into an easy quiet, Keith looks back out to the shining moon up above.

“I hope you never have to become King, Lance,” Keith says, the words full of genuine kindness. “But if you ever did, I think you’d be a really good one.”

Keith faces him then and an odd pain lurches in Lance’s chest because once again, he swears he saw human Keith for a split second. The feeling, too, is concerning. It’s not an unfamiliar feeling, but it’s confusing in this context. His heart is racing and he can’t explain why.

Lance bats the conflict brewing inside him away and searches desperately for a diversion. He finds one quickly and thanks the gods.

“Ugh, this is too serious. I came up here to tell you good news, y’know,” Lance says, flashing Keith a teasing smile.

Keith quirks an eyebrow. “Good news? What?”

“I convinced Iverson to let one of my servants ask around for information on Shiro,” Lance says, crossing his arms and his face painted with well deserved smugness.

Keith’s stunned face only makes Lance’s smugness thrive.

“You did?”

“Yep!” Lance says, before sobering. “But it’s a long shot, Keith. It’s possible Shiro moved to Olkarion after you...well, y’know.”

Keith’s face goes blank on the word “Olkarion” and Lance can tell he’s remembered something.

“That’s right. He...he left to meet the Olkarion court.”

“Hey, man. He might have stayed. I read some letters yesterday from the Commander Knight there and she mentioned in her letters how upset Shiro was. He was coming straight back once he heard. Look, I don’t want you to get your hopes up, but don’t give up either. It’s not much, but it’s a start.”

Keith’s eyes bore into Lance’s again and after a moment, he lets the tension in his shoulders melt. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s a start.” 

* * *

_Lance is dreaming again. He can tell by how crowded the courtyard is, bustling with people on a warm summer afternoon, when it’s autumn in the waking world. The castle looks cleaner, brighter, like the version he knows is sick in comparison._

_He’s walking down the open air hallway that surrounds and hovers the courtyard, a perfect place to be in case the castle ever puts on a play or contest. In the middle of the hall is a red-haired woman wearing an emerald gown with intricate trimmings and golden accents. It’s a dress only a noble can afford. She stands straight, her posture impeccable and practiced, as her hands rest on the stone bannister. Her eyes are settled on the courtyard, transfixed._

_Lance approaches her slowly and as he does, he hears the clangs and shouts of a swordfight below him. He steps up beside the noble woman and takes in the scene._

_Below, two young men spar and circle each other, swords in hand. One is blurry, unidentifiable and the other...the other is_ familiar _. Raven hair. Severe jawline. Handsome._

_Lance knows him, but doesn’t. He can’t match a name or a face to him, but something stirs in Lance, and just like the athletic boy below, he can’t name it._

_He turns his attention back to the maiden and is both surprised and unsurprised by what he finds there: eyes lidded and soft, lips slightly parted, and an unmistakable coloring of her cheeks that is too pigmented to be paints or pinching._

_Lance wakes just as he makes the connection._

* * *

Lance has known for awhile that his dreams aren’t just dreams, but there’s no real denying it now. Hasn’t really been since the night Keith woke up.

The dreams beg more questions than they answer, though. Who is the woman emerald? Why does Lance dream of her? _How_ does Lance dream of her? What, if anything, are the dreams trying to tell him?

He has ideas. Theories. The woman’s blush further proves his hypothesis, but he’s not willing to chase a lead on fuzzy dreams alone. Though, they might be his only lead if his one on Shiro goes cold.

He hasn’t brought them up to Keith, though he’s not sure why. Perhaps it’s too personal, too painful of a track to go down unless he’s sure.

And if there’s anything Lance _is_ sure about, it’s that he wants to reduce Keith’s pain to an absolute minimum.

 

The next few days are quiet and dull. Lance has no dreams and he finds nothing new on the Keith front. In the evenings, Lance comes up to visit him, bearing gifts of books and candles so Keith can read when Lance’s eyes start to droop and his bed calls for him.

They get into a certain rhythm then, talking for hours, playing chess, reading in silence but together. Keith had his favorite stories stowed away from before his curse and he gives them to Lance, happy to have someone to share them with and Lance just as happy to have new material, especially from Keith. If nothing else, his taste in books is top notch. He likes his share of adventure and romance just as much as Lance does and they find themselves chatting for days on their favorite titles.

It’s so easy, being Keith’s friend. Lance has always had an easy time making friends, but Keith’s friendship, despite his stubbornness and closed off nature, felt inevitable. Sure as the sun would set and rise again. It’s like they’ve known each other for years, not weeks.

And maybe, somewhere along the way, Lance starts feeling _better._ So much so that Iverson notices one evening at supper.

“You seem chipper,” he says, trying to sound casual but Lance can see through it. Lance hears the unasked _what’s different?_ Clearly.

“Do I?” Lance asks around a bite of lamb.

“It’s like how you were back in Colquan.”

Lance stops, placing down his cutlery. “In what way?”

“You hum when you walk down the halls.”

“I don’t—”

“You do. You didn’t when we first got here, but now you do.” Iverson laughs. “In truth, it drove me insane when we were in Colquan. Couldn’t have a moment’s quiet with you around.”

“Oh,” Lance says and his body slumps. Something about Iverson’s observation makes him feel cold.

“Did something change?”

_Yes._

“No. No, I—I was just...upset before but I think I’m handling it better now.”

Iverson nods. “That’s good. You always were an adaptable child. I knew you’d cheer up soon.”

Lance scratches the back of his neck, a nagging little suggestion clawing at his brain. He beats it away. He isn’t about to go down that route. He’s not.

“Speaking of,” Iverson says while Lance wrestles with his own mind. “Florona went into town today.”

The storm inside Lance seizes and he gasps, leaning forward. “Did she find out anything?”

Iverson takes a bite of food and waits until he’s swallowed to answer and the process takes so long, Lance is close to tearing his hair out. “She did.”

“ _Well?_ ”

“He lives in a little cottage on the outskirts of town. Goes to the local pub once a week and volunteers at a soup kitchen.”

“He’s _alive_?”

Iverson nods easily, far less interested in the conversation than Lance as he picks up his wine glass. “And well, as I hear it.”

Blood pounds in Lance’s ears. He has a link to Keith’s past—someone who knew him, someone who _loved_ him. He’s alive and he’s close.

“Iverson, could I please meet with him at his home, if only for an hour?” Lance asks, desperately, almost pouncing out of his seat.  

Iverson lowers his glass and raises his eyebrow so high that Lance worries it’ll fling right off his face and onto the ceiling.

“ _Of course_ not. You know that. You can’t leave the castle, Your Grace, and you’re perfectly aware as to _why_.”

“Then, let him come here!”

“And compromise our secrecy? The town doesn’t know the castle is occupied. Every time I send out a servant to town they have to cover their tracks, make it look like they haven’t come from the castle, and you want to lead someone right to us? If one person knows, the entire town will in the morning.”

“Shiro wouldn’t tell anyone, I swear. Iverson, _please_.”

“You don’t know this man. Why shouldn’t he tell? Do you know how handsomely people pay for secrets? How valuable they are? No, absolutely not. It’s a non-starter.”

“But Iverson—”

“But nothing. I did more than enough to whet your appetite for a good story and now you have its ending. He’s alive and lives in town and has done so for years. The end.”

“You don’t understand. I _need_ to speak with him. Please, I could wear a cloak and sneak out like Florona does—”

**_SLAM!_ **

Lance is interrupted by Iverson crashing his hand to the table, the silverware and glasses trembling from the impact. Lance is stunned to silence, staring at him.

“Enough,” Iverson says, his voice full of cold metal. “You will _not_ be speaking to this Takashi Shirogane for any reason. You will not leave this _castle_ for any reason. End of discussion.”

Lance’s whole body tenses like he’s been doused with ice water. Iverson’s never spoken to him like that before.

He says nothing, his eyes drifting back to his plate, but he doesn’t have the stomach for it at all anymore. The cogs in his mind start turning, despite his shock at Iverson’s insistence.

_Shiro’s alive. He’s alive and he lives just a half hour walk away. He can help Keith. Help me break Keith’s curse._

Keith.

Keith, whose entire life has been one misfortune after the other. Keith, who can’t take a joke and pouts when he loses at chess. Keith, who sometimes reads his favorite passages to Lance because he’s so excited about them. Keith, his friend.

Lance has a possible key to his humanity and Iverson is telling him he can’t go get it.

He straightens in his seat and squares his shoulders, resolve burning in his belly like coals in a fire.

Iverson can yell and shout at Lance to stay put, but what power does he hold over him really?

What is Iverson to a Prince? 

* * *

Lance wastes no time going to the rose window tower after dinner. As mad as he is at Iverson, nothing could ruin the steady thrumming in Lance’s veins that comes from knowing he’s about to give Keith good news.

The feeling fills him up, makes the climb to the tower not only easy, but _enjoyable_. He has no idea when this started, when he’d do anything to pull a smile from Keith, but Lance has news that is sure to win him one. It’s a selfish feeling, really, but Lance is drunk on it.

Keith is reading a book when Lance barges in and he startles a little with the banging of the door.

“What are you—why are you _smiling_ like that?” Keith asks, narrowing his eyes at Lance. Lance’s grin just gets wider.

“I have something to tell you.”

Keith looks back down at his book. “Tell me or go. I was just getting to the good part.”

“It’s about Shiro—”

Keith snaps the book shut and throws it on the bench as he stands, not even bothering to mark his place. “Is he—”

“He’s alive!” Lance blurts, crossing to Keith with his hand tentatively reaching out. His voice softens as he sees Keith’s expression turn to shocked confusion. “He’s alive, Keith. He lives on the outskirts of town.”

It’s overwhelming, Lance can tell. Keith collapses onto his pedestal and buries his face in his hands. Lance doesn’t think Keith is physically capable of crying, but he’s pretty sure Keith is doing his version of it.

Lance sits beside him on the pedestal until Keith gets his bearings. It takes a few minutes, but eventually, Keith lifts his head, takes a shaky inhale and asks, “Is he well?”

“I don’t know a lot,” Lance admits. “But I do know he goes to the pub every week. And he volunteers at a soup kitchen.”

Finally, Lance is rewarded with a smile. It’s a ghost of a thing, more of an impression than a real smile, but Lance feels it just the same.

“He’s _alive_ ,” Keith says, still unbelieving.

“Are you happy?”

“I’m...I don’t even know _what_ I’m feeling. I never thought—I thought they’d all be gone.”

“Well,” Lance says, placing a gentle hand on Keith’s shoulder blade. “They’re not. You got at least one.”

“I have more than one,” Keith says, smiling and this time it’s corporeal, a dazzling light that threatens to blind Lance. Lance’s cheeks heat.

“I’m—I’m going to talk to him,” Lance says, changing the subject.

Keith shakes his head. “Whoa, _what_?”

“What? You think I’m gonna find out the one person who might know what’s going on with you is alive and _not_ talk to him?”

“I—no, Lance you can’t.”

“Why not?”

“You’re supposed to be in hiding!”

“Well, I’ll hide while I talk to him. I’ll wear a hooded cloak and everything.”

“It’s _dangerous_.”

“You sound like Iverson.”

“Did he tell you not to go too?” Keith asks, arms crossed.

Lance eyes him with furrowed brows. “It doesn’t matter. I’m talking to Shiro no matter what you or anyone else says.”

“Lance,” Keith says before he looks away and makes a strangled sound. “I get what you’re trying to do and I really appreciate it but—”

“No.”

“What?”

“ _No_.”

“Lance—”

“No, I don’t care, Keith. He’ll know something, I know he will and I’m not gonna give up the chance to get you your body back just because you and Iverson want to be extra cautious.”

“Your life is at stake.”

“And so is yours!” Lance says, suddenly furious. “Look at where you are.” He spreads his arms to indicate the tower attic. “You’re holed up here all day with nothing but books to keep you sane. This isn’t living, Keith. This is a _prison_.”

Keith shakes his head. “I can’t ask you to do this for me.”

“You’re not. I’m choosing it.”

Fed up, Lance stands with every intention of heading to the door, but he’s stopped when a cool, large hand takes his, stopping him in his tracks.

Lance looks back to see Keith holding onto him with his head bowed, his eyes obscured by purple fringe.

“How will I ever thank you,” he whispers and Lance’s heart plunges to his stomach.

“You don’t have to,” Lance says, matching Keith’s volume. “I’m doing it because I want to.”

Keith’s hand tightens around Lance’s. “Still, I—”

“Keith, it’s okay. Let me do this for you.”

He looks up at Lance then, yellow eyes wide and vulnerable, and the cracks of his resolve are showing. He wants Lance to go, even if he’s fighting Lance on it.

Then, Keith surrenders—his head and shoulders slump like all the air has left him, but he doesn’t let go of Lance’s hand.

“Promise me something—no, _two_ things.”

“What?”

“Be safe.”

Lance snorts.

“I mean it.”

Lance rolls his eyes but still he says, “I promise I’ll be safe. What’s the other?”

Keith lets go of Lance’s hand so he can rub the back of his neck. “Promise...promise you won’t tell Shiro that I’m... _awake._ ”

“You don’t want him to know?”

“It’s too dangerous. If you tell him, I know he’s going to want to see me and we can’t bring attention to the castle.”

“I’m pretty sure he’d understand the situation if we told him. You always make him sound so trustworthy.”

“He _is_ trustworthy but I—it’s more than that,” Keith says, haunted.

“What is it?”

Keith looks down at his hand, his _claws_ and shakes his head. “I don’t want to see me like this, Lance.”

Lance stills at the words and _of course_ , Keith doesn’t want Shiro to see him.

“I promise,” Lance says, his voice so delicate he almost doesn’t recognize it.

Relief washes over Keith face. “ _Thank you._ ”

Lance makes a promise to himself right then and there that the first thing he’ll do when he breaks the spell is drag Keith to Shiro’s house himself.

* * *

The next day, Lance searches the castle for Florona, hell bent on his task. She squeaks when he calls her name and turns around with one hand holding a basket of laundry to her hip and the other on her mouth.

“Y-Your Grace,” she says with a bow. “How can I help you?”

“I was hoping we could have a little chat,” Lance says, taking the basket from her hands despite her protests.

“No, sir, I couldn’t—”

Lance silences her with a raised palm and a kind smile. It’s true, Lance isn’t really meant to speak with his servants; it’s an archaic rule that Luís promises to amend once he takes the throne and one Lance has broken countless times before. What Iverson doesn’t know won’t hurt him.

With a gentle touch, Lance takes Florona’s dainty hand in his own like she’s of noble heritage—his forefinger supporting her palm while his thumb presses into her knuckles. She gasps at the touch, her cheeks a splash of red and Lance smirks. It’s been too long since he’s gotten a chance to flirt, gotten a chance to feel like a _prince_.

“Sit with me awhile,” he says, bringing her to a nearby window seat. “Only if you want to, of course.”

Florona looks up and down the hall and when she’s satisfied they’re alone, she nods. Lance smiles and gestures for her to sit. When she does, he joins her.

“You wanted to talk, Your Grace?” she asks, eyes wide and innocent.

“No need to be so formal,” he says with a wave of his hand. “But yes, I did.”

“About what?”

“Well,” Lance starts with a dramatic sigh, letting his cordial features dampen into a forlorn expression. “I get so restless being in this castle all the time. I used to go out and explore Nalquod almost every day when I was there. I miss it.”

“Oh, I imagine that must be hard, sir.”

“I try not to complain. But I was wondering,” Lance says and gives her hand a little squeeze, “if you could tell me of Arus. You get supplies, right? So you’ve seen a good deal of the town?”

Florona nods again. “You want me to tell you about the town?”

“Would you? Please?” he asks, voice bordering on a purr.

Florona blushes and clears her throat. “What do you want to know?”

“ _Everything_.”

 

Turns out saying “everything” was the wrong thing to say because Florona took it quite literally.

It took nearly two hours to get Florona to naturally start talking about pubs.

“...and _yesterday_ I went to this cute little pub in the corner of the town square, y’know, the courtyard with the big fountain in it?”

Lance, whose cheery facade was starting to fade, perked up. “The one with the carvings of animals in the blue tiles?”

“Yes! That one! Oh, Your Grace, I think that fountain is my favorite part of the town. You really have to see it once you’re able.”

“I’ll put it on my list! What about the pub?”

“Well, I went there on an errand for the Commander. He wanted to know about the Commander who used to work in this castle years ago,” Florona whispers, like it’s a great secret.

“Really?” Lance asks like he doesn’t already know.

Florona nods. “Yes, I asked around at lots of places like the market and the merchant tents, but the pub was the only place I found anything.”

“What was this pub like?”

“Pretty standard. I don’t think you’d like it much. Definitely more of a place for the common folk.”

“No, no I—I _like_ places like that. They’re always the most fun.”

Florona giggles at that. “More so than all the fancy balls?”

“ _Especially_ more so than the fancy balls,” Lance says and Florona giggles again. He puts a hand on her hand and she stops.

“Your Grace?”

“Could you tell me its name?” he asks, laying it on thick and sweet for her. “So I can put on my list?”

Her breath catches in her throat and Lance knows she’ll tell him before she does.

“The Black Lion.”

 

Over the next several days, Lance watches the guards. He studies their shifts and their patterns and he strategizes. He takes notes and makes charts, determined to sneak in and out without being caught.

And the week after he resolved himself to meet with Shiro, Lance is ready.

 _Tomorrow night_ , he thinks, as he closes his eyes to sleep.

_Tomorrow night._

 

 _He’s dreaming. He knows he is because there’s some fantastic ball happening in the castle’s ballroom and there’s no way this castle is holding a ball any place_ besides _his dreams._

_It’s a lush affair—men and women in glittering clothes and animal masks, the sound of string instruments and drunk laughter filling the air, the smell of wine and perfume tickling under his nose. There’s so many people, so many masks, but the thing that catches his eye in the whole room is a knight in full armor heading out the door to the gardens. His helmet is tucked in the crook of his elbow and his long black hair is shiny under the gas lights._

_Lance watches as he disappears into the night and finds himself moving towards him. He’s not alone, however. A woman, the_ same _woman, in an emerald green dress and cat’s mask is following the raven-haired man too._

_Lance quickens his pace but neither of them gets very far. The black-haired man is looking over a balcony at the gardens, breathing in the crisp night air. Even in the small time it took to go from inside to outside, the man seems significantly more relaxed._

_“You don’t like crowds, do you?” the woman asks, coming up from behind him to lean on the same bannister. He bows to her._

_“My apologies, My Lady. I just wanted a breath of fresh air.”_

_“Then you shall have it! If you don’t mind that I join you.”_

_“I don’t mind.”_

_She hums and they’re silent for several moments, both just looking over at the hedges and rose bushes._

_“They’re funny things, aren’t they? Balls?” the woman asks, a delicate finger tracing shapes on the stone railing._

_“How so?”_

_“Oh, well, I guess it’s a touch different for gentlemen, but for ladies, you get so many people asking you to dance and yet—” she cuts herself off, like the words are trapped in her throat._

_“And yet?” the raven-haired man asks, curious. And there’s something about the way he lifts an eyebrow, asks the question that is so_ familiar _to Lance, but the face is still too fuzzy for him to place._

_“And yet,” she says, quiet. Desperate. “And yet, the ones who you want to ask never do.”_

_On the last words, her hand flies and lands on top of the man’s hand._

_“My Lady?” the man asks, startled._

_“You must feel it too. I_ know _you do.”_

 _There’s a long moment where they both stare at each other, suspended in time and neither is breathing._ Lance _isn’t breathing._

_The man slips his hand out from under hers._

_“I’m sorry. I—I don’t think I do.”_

_The woman’s face falls and Lance can see the heartbreak and confusion flood her face. This isn’t at all how she thought this would go._

_“But you—all the other guards_ look _at me.”_

_“I’ve never looked at you, My Lady.”_

_“What? You do! I know you do!”_

_“Everything I have done was to protect you. To keep my vow to the crown. It was never anything more than that. I’m sorry.”_

_Her eyes flash, the gloss of tears in them gone in a couple blinks and her eyebrows slant into sharp angles. Heat radiates off of her and Lance can tell she’s furious._

_“You heartless_ wretch _!” she yells._

 

The Lady’s last words startle Lance awake and he sits up with a jolt in his bedroom. He brings his thumb to his mouth and chews on the nail, turning the dream over and over again in his mind. He doesn’t know why he’s having these dreams, but he’s more convinced than ever that they’re not just a side effect of his active imagination. Instead, he’s certain they’re clues and he thinks he just figured out one piece of the riddle.

* * *

Lance is donned in his blue cloak when he tiptoes into the dark, vacant kitchen. The window that faces the gardens is easy to open and easier to crawl through than any other window on the first floor. It also is out of sight of the evening guards. He’s been careful in his plans to sneak out, but even so, he’s nervous at how effortless it would be to get caught.

_No turning back now._

For a moment, he shuts his eyes and takes a breath and slips his hand in his trouser pocket, his thumb grazing over the smooth metal of the small object he has tucked away in there. _I can do this_. _I snuck out at home all the time._

The stakes are much higher this time, he knows that, but that shouldn’t change anything _really_ , should it?

Lance straightens his spine and opens the door of the utility closet next to the pantry. On the high shelf, there’s a lantern, some candles, and scattered matchboxes. He takes the lantern and stuffs a few of the candles and matchboxes in his cloak pockets, placing one candle in the lantern itself.

He shuts the closet door carefully behind him and faces his exit. Before he has too much time to fret over how dumb this plan is, Lance put his hand on the window’s handle, turning it down and pulling it towards him. The window makes the faintest _creak_ but it sounds like a bellowed scream in the dead silent kitchen and Lance winces. He does a quick check, looking around the room and listening for any approaching footsteps, but he hears none.

The cool night air tickles Lance’s cheeks as he brings his leg over the window’s seal, the other following quickly after and his feet meet soft grass. He shuts the window behind him as much as he can, leaving it just a crack open so he can get back in once he returns.

Lance flicks the hood up on his cloak and tightens his hold on the lantern’s handle. He can’t light it, not yet. First, he has to get out of range from the guards.

Speaking of…

Lance makes his way around to the front of the castle, being careful not to step on any twigs or trip on any rocks as he does. When he’s near the front, he presses his back to the west wall of the castle and sneaks a peek at the entrance. There’s always two guards stationed at the top of the stairs in front of the heavy double doors and at ten in the evening on the dot, they switch with the late night shift.  

They should leave any minute and when they do, it’ll give Lance a small window to cross to the road that leads to town. The road is shrouded in trees so once he’s over there, he can turn on his lantern, but until then he’s stuck fumbling in the dark.

Lance watches the guards intently, waiting for them to turn inside so he can run as soon as they do. It’ll be any moment and his pulse is racing with anticipation. This is the trickiest part, the one that could ruin his chances the easiest.

His mind is about to fall into panic when the guards look at each other, give a nod and turn away.

Lance doesn’t think, he just runs. He holds the lantern tight to his chest so it doesn’t make any noise as he sprints and he stays as light on his feet as possible. It’s not a long run, not by any means, but it feels like a whole desert is between him and the road.

It feels like hours instead of seconds when Lance finally reaches the first big tree that’s able to give him cover. He braces himself against the tree’s thick trunk and tucks his elbows in to make his silhouette as small as possible. His rib cage presses on and off the trunk with Lance’s shaky, labored breath. The guards shouldn’t be able to hear such a soft sound, but he tries to quiet his breaths just the same. He focuses on the sound of the guards, listens for any shuffling or any hint that they might have noticed some suspicious movement, but it never comes.

Lance closes his eyes and takes a moment to calm down. _They didn’t see me. It’s okay._

When his heart is pumping at a normal rate again, Lance starts down the road, still quiet and cautious. He wants to wait until he’s several yards away before he lights his lantern, just in case it would be visible to the guards through the trees’ foliage, but the moonlight is enough to get him at least that far.

When he feels confident that he’s far enough away from the castle to be safe, he lights his lantern and it’s a huge relief. His nerves were starting to get the better of him while he was traversing through the dark, but the lantern makes him feel a little bit safer.

A little bit.

The road is surrounded by Arus’ forest which, in the day time, is beautiful and scenic, but at night is straight out of a nightmare. The trees are silhouetted in black by the moonlight, there’s strange animal noises all around him, and there’s a layer of fog on the ground that reaches Lance’s shins. The fog only gets denser the further he follows the road and it’s making the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

_It’s okay, it’s okay. It’s just a forest. Just a little darker than you’re used to._

Even with rational thought, Lance’s heart won’t stop pounding in his chest and he picks up speed, hurtling down the road at a light jog.

By the time he’s down the hill and seeing the first street lamp of the town, Lance has lost years of his life. The amount of times he thought something or _someone_ was behind him is enough to make his brown hair go prematurely grey.

He breathes a sigh of relief as he passes closed shops and little houses in the town, happy to be among the living once again, even if most of them are asleep or getting ready to sleep. Where he’s going should attract a late night crowd anyway.

There’s not many people on the street, but he does see a man smoking against a small cottage.Lance approaches him.

“Evening,” he says with a bow. The man, wearing dirty clothes and a scowl, looks him up and down, evaluating. He grunts in reply.

Lance clear his throat. “I’m uh, meeting a buddy of mine at the Black Lion. Could you point me in the right direction?”

The man gives Lance another appraising look and finally shrugs. “Gonna keep goin’ straight until ya see a big fount’in to your left. It’s in the same square, on one of the corners. Got a sign with a lion painted on it. Can’t miss it.”

“Thank you so much!” Lance says, bowing again and taking off in the direction the man gave him.  

Down each street, Lance looks for the fountain Florona and the man described, passing alleyway after alleyway. It’s about four streets down when he sees it—lit up all pretty with a circle of lamps and strings of little lanterns criss-crossing over it. The fountain is three-tiered with water spouting at the top tier and cascading down the bigger two until it lands in the basin which is decorated with ornate, blue tiles with animals expertly etched into them.

It’s beautiful and with a twinge, he regrets he can’t be here to enjoy it. He only has so much time.

He crosses to the square, looking for the pub and finds it easily. There’s nothing striking about the pub’s appearance; it’s a simple hole-in-the-wall place made of the same brick and mortar as the rest of the nearby shops, but it does have a large hanging sign with the words “The Black Lion” in the jaws of a black lion’s head.

Lance wraps his hand around the clasp of his cloak to steady himself and then opens the wooden door. Inside, the pub is warm and smells strongly of ale and dirt. There’s wooden tables scattered across the floor and a long bar with rows of stools underneath where a bar keep fills patrons’ steins with amber liquid. Everyone in the pub is a man over the age of fifty; the lone exception being the barkeep, a black man a little older than Lance. There’s a few groups of men in various tables, all a little too consumed with their drink to pay Lance any mind and a duo at the far end of the bar getting there.

Feeling out of place, Lance makes a beeline for the bar, sitting down at one of the stools on the opposite end of the two men also at the bar. Hood still on, Lance waits patiently for the barkeep to notice him.

The man approaches him, wiping a dirty glass with a rag as he does and shoots Lance a warm smile.

“Don’t think I’ve seen you ‘round here before,” he says, hanging up the now clean glass on the above racks.

“I’m um...just passing through,” Lance says, struggling to keep his tone casual.

“Oh, yeah? What for?”

“Business.”

The barkeep hums. “You look a little young to be in a pub let alone have _business_. What kind of business?”

“Can I get a drink?” Lance asks, not meeting the barkeep’s eyes.

“Sure. What can I get you? Milk? Apple juice?”

“A lager is fine.”

The bar keep nods and takes a clean stein off the rack, filling it with beer from the tap. He slides it over to Lance and says, “Name’s Ryan, by the way. Ryan Kinkade.”

“I’m…” Lance hesitates, not sure if he should use his real name until his mouth decides for him. “Keith.”

“Nice to meet you, Keith. We don’t get a lot of new faces around here. Kind of a momentous occasion when we do.”

“Small town.”

“Small town,” Ryan agrees, grabbing a wet rag from under the bar and cleaning the beer-laden surface.

“This your bar?”

“Yes and no. It’s a family business. My granddad built this place with his own two hands.”

“That’s incredible.”

“Yeah.” Ryan pats the bar with the palm of his hand. “This place has seen a lot.”

“I can imagine.”

“How about you? What’s this business you have?”

Lance takes a moment to sip his beer and mentally congratulate himself for not gagging. It tastes like sewer water and rotten hops. He sighs like he’s enjoyed it for Ryan’s benefit. “I was actually hoping you could help me with that.”

“Not sure I’ll be much help, but sure, I can try.”

Lance licks his lips and his hands tremble slightly. “I’m looking for someone I hear is a regular. Takashi Shirogane?”

Ryan’s eyes widen at the name and the warm, inviting demeanor he’s been wearing slides off into something fierce and intimidating. Protective. “Now, listen here, Keith. Shiro’s not just a regular, he’s a dear friend and if you have any plans on hurti—”

“No, no! Please, nothing like that. I just...have a message for him.”

Ryan eyes him suspiciously. “You’re gonna have to give me more than that before I just give a stranger my friend’s address.”

Lance grinds his teeth as he thumbs the piece of metal in his pant pocket, weighing his options.

 _I can’t just show him the brooch,_ Lance thinks. A small town like this spreads rumors like they’re wildfire and if the Galra catch wind…

No, he can’t. He has to convince Ryan some other way.

Lance clears his throat. “I’m from Olkarion.”

“Olakrion?” Ryan asks, raising his eyebrows.

“If you’re friends with Shiro, then I’m sure you know he visited us a long time ago. That he was thinking of commanding our guards.”

“He’s mentioned it,” Ryan says, suspicion still fresh on his face, but he’s listening.

“Olkarion was always sad to lose him, so they hold his opinion in high esteem. They sent me with a message that needs immediate attention. I have to find him.”

Ryan stares at him for several moments and Lance meets his gaze, unwavering.

“Alright,” Ryan says after a tense moment. “I’ll give you directions, but only because you wouldn’t stand a chance against Shiro.”

“He’s in his seventies!”

“Yeah, and you have the body type of a twig.”

“I’m _lean_ , thank you very much.”

Ryan chuckles at that, a warm, rumbling sound and grabs some paper and quill from near the till. He scribbles something on the parchment, the tip of the quill scratching against it and hands it to Lance. “He lives on the outskirts of town. ‘Bout a twenty minute walk if you hurry. Just follow that and you’ll find it alright.”

“ _Thank you_ ,” Lance says, bringing the paper closer to him. “It’s...gonna help a lot.”

Ryan waves him off. “Naw, don’t worry about it. Wouldn’t want you thinkin’ Arus wasn’t full of hospitiable types.”

Lance grins at him and fishes for a coin in his cloak pocket. He slams the bronze coin on the counter as he stands up and takes up his lantern again. “I have to go!”

“Now, hold on that’s way too much. Let me get your change—”

“No, time!” Lance says, halfway to the exit. “Consider it a tip.”

“But you didn’t even finish your beer!”

Lance pushes open the door and with a wave, he disappears into the night.

 

Ryan, it turns out, has the _messiest_ handwriting Lance has ever seen. The amount of times he’s confused Ls for Bs is enough to make him mad, but eventually he finds the little foot-worn path that Ryan says leads to Shiro’s cottage.

With each step, Lance’s nerves grow, filling him with a dread he can’t shake no matter how many times he reminds himself to breathe. What if Shiro won’t speak to him? What if he slams the door in his face and Lance has to tell Keith their trail’s gone cold? He can’t go back with _nothing_ after everything he’s done to get here. He just can’t.

When the cottage is in Lance’s sights, he’s pretty sure he’s going to throw up right there in the grass.

_Keep it together, Lance. Keep it together._

The cottage is modest with a thatched roof and stone walls making up its parts. It’s small—Lance is pretty sure there’s only space for one bedroom, a bathroom, a kitchen, and maybe a small dining area, but it’s not without its charms. The windows all have boxes of violas and sweet peas decorating the bottom of the sills and there’s an herb garden on the east of the cottage.

Lance eyes the wooden door, only feet ahead of him now, and his stomach squirms like he’s swallowed several worms.

 _You have to do this_ , he tells himself and the image of Keith, sitting by the rose window pops into his mind. _Keith needs you to do this._

With more confidence than he feels, Lance puffs out his chest and stomps to the front door. He raises a fist and before he can scare himself out of it, he knocks on the door.

The house is silent.

Lance raps on the door again, this time with more force, the harsh wood of the door scratching his knuckles. Panic fills Lance again and just when he’s sure there’s no one even in the cottage, there’s a flicker of flame in one of the windows.

Without his noticing, Lance’s shoulders have hiked to his ears. In a rush, he’s reminded how insane this plan is—he’s a prince on the run from assassins and he’s come to some secluded cottage on the edge of town where no one can hear him scream. He could compromise everything his parents did to keep him safe with this little escapade. Shiro might not be as good of a guy as Keith remembers. He might kick him to the curb or worse, take him hostage and sell him to the Galra or—

The door opens.

“Can I help you?” an elderly man holding a candle asks, not unkindly, but with just enough bite to tell he’s annoyed. Lance’s throat closes and his eyes widen as he takes the man in—his hair is stark white, his face is covered in laughter lines while a scar streaks across the bridge of his nose, and he’s missing his right arm. He’s also so muscled that Lance is pretty sure Ryan was absolutely right; there’s no way Lance could beat this guy in a fight.

Lance blinks under the man’s gaze and clears his throat. “Are you—uh, are you Takashi Shirogane, sir?”

“That’s me, but look, can this wait until morning? It’s late and I—”

“Takashi, what are you doing? Come back to bed,” says a male’s voice and easily as it comes, so too does a wrinkled, brown hand on Shiro’s shoulder.  A man, about the same age as Shiro wearing spectacles comes into view and as soon as he sees Lance, his hand rips from Shiro’s shoulder like he’s been electrocuted. “Oh!”

“Adam,” Shiro says. Adam? Adam from the letter? Lance almost asks when he stops to see a flicker of fear in both their eyes that immediately makes him guilty. He doesn’t want to cause either of them trouble, but he can’t stop now. “Go back to bed.”

“I’ll wait for you—”

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to intrude, but I really need to speak with you Mr. Shirogane and it has to be right now. It’s important,” Lance says, his spine straightening as he does.  

Shiro looks him up and down and Lance is sure he’s seeing right through to his bones. “Who are you? What do you want?”

The interrogations by Ryan and now Shiro are taking too long and he needs to get back to the castle, so Lance pulls out his secret weapon from his trouser pocket—a gold-plated brooch carved into the King of Colquan’s coat of arms.

“My name is Prince Leandro, the Kingdom of Nalquod’s third prince, fifth in line for the throne and I’m here to speak with you about an old friend of yours.”

At the sight of his brooch, both men gasp and immediately kneel, their heads bowed.

“Your Grace, forgive my rudeness. I had no idea—”

“No, please,” Lance starts, offering a hand to Shiro. “I apologize for having to come at such a late hour, but this was the only way. Could we maybe take this inside?”

Shiro takes Lance’s hand and rises to his feet, Adam right behind him. He opens the door wide and gestures for Lance to come in. “Yes, of course. Make yourself comfortable.”

Lance walks inside while Adam and Shiro light their lamps, both of them hurrying but the clear sign of aching bones slowing them down. When it’s lighted, it’s just as warm and sweet as the outside—two cushioned chairs next to the fireplace, a hearty wooden table next to the kitchen, whittled wood carvings decorating the shelving. It feels like a home.

The feeling is punctuated by a big black mutt circling Lance with a dopey smile and her thick tail swatting at his legs to persuade him into back scratches.

“Echo, leave him be,” Shiro says, lighting the last lamp.

“No, it’s okay. I love dogs,” Lance says as he spoils Echo rotten with pets. She takes full advantage of the situation and plummets to the floor, exposing her pink belly to him.

Lance snorts. “You’re just like Peri.”

“That your dog?” Adam asks.

“Palace dog. She’s technically my sister’s, but she loves me most because I _always_ give her belly scratches.” Lance emphasizes his point with enthusiastic belly rubs that has Echo’s back leg kicking in reflex. That was something Peri used to do too. She’s a much smaller dog than Echo, a little terrier with her the long hair on the top of her hair always done in a little periwinkle bow, but she loved Lance’s attentions in the same way.

Lance is struck with a homesickness so cutting it brings water to his eyes before he can even try to stop it. He blinks rapidly and gives Echo one last pat on the head before standing up. “Good girl.”

“You’ve won her heart forever, now,” Shiro says as he sits down at the wooden table. He gestures for Lance to do the same. Lance pulls out the chair across from Shiro and sits down. “Adam’s making tea.”

“Oh, you don’t have to go through the trouble—”

“No, no. It’s not every day we get to entertain _royalty_ in our home.”

“From what I hear, you’re pretty popular among the royals,” Lance says and sad smile crosses Shiro’s face.

“That was...a long time ago. I’ve been retired for many years.”

“Still, I’ve heard great things.”

“Was that what you needed to talk about, Your Grace? My time serving?”

Lance shifts in his seat and studies the grain in the wood of the table. “Not...exactly. I’m here because I—it’s kind of a long story, but um, I’m living in the castle on the hill and—”

“You’re living in the _castle_?! But it hasn’t been occupied in decades, not ever since…” Shiro grows quiet, a dark cloud shrouding his face.

“I’m sorry. I know that place must bring back painful memories for you, but if you let me explain…”

And Lance tells him everything. Well, nearly everything. He keeps his promise to Keith and doesn’t let Shiro know he’s awake, but as guilty as he’d feel for breaking that promise, it’s just as hard not telling the truth. Lance can tell how much the tragedy at the castle affected Shiro and Lance knows he’d be overjoyed to know Keith is alive.

Still, Lance keeps his promise and only tells Shiro about how his family is fleeing from Galran assassins, how Arus is kind enough to hide him in the castle, and how he’s learned of Shiro through the castle records.

While they talk, Adam brings them mugs of hot citrus tea and takes a seat next to Shiro. They’re less tense next to each other and that doesn’t escape Lance’s notice.  

“So, do you want protection?” Shiro asks when Lance finishes his story. “I’m not in bad shape but I’m not exactly in my prime either.”

“No, that’s not why I’m here.”

“Then, why?”

Lance takes a deep breath and closes his eyes for a moment. He’s been dreading bringing this particular part up the entire night. He wouldn’t be surprised if they both reacted poorly to it. “A few weeks back, I was in the library. There’s a hidden passageway behind one of the bookshelves—”

“I know of it,” Shiro says and narrows his eyes. Lance thinks he sees Adam hold Shiro’s wrist under the table.

“Then, you probably know what’s up there.”

Shiro shakes his head. “That’s an old wound, Your Grace.”

“I know,” Lance says, voice reaching, hoping Shiro will understand. “I know and I hate to disturb you with it, but I—after what I know about you and your time in Olkarion, and the knight that disappeared shortly after—I need to know what happened.”

“Why? Why do you have to know?” Shiro asks, an edge to his voice.

“Shiro—” Adam starts.

“No. Tell me, Prince. What good will it do?”  

“I think I can help,” Lance says and he surprises himself when the words come out steady and sure.

“What, and break the curse?” Shiro asks.

“If you tell me what I need to know, I think I can.”

“It’s been fifty years! What makes you think you can? What makes you think we haven’t tried _everything_ in our power to bring him back?”

“I’m—I’m sure you have but—”

“But what?”

“But I have dreams! Almost every night. I see memories that aren’t my own. And _always_ of the same two people—a noble lady in a green dress and a squire with black hair. I didn’t think anything of them at first, but they’re so _consistent_. The squire...I always see him reading by the rose window before he gets turned to stone. They mean something. I _know_ they mean something.”

Adam and Shiro stare at Lance, their eyes wide in surprise before Shiro’s fall onto the table. “He did always like to read.”

“Please,” Lance says, desperate to get him to understand. “The only thing I want from you is information. I just need to know what happened fifty years ago.”

Adam and Shiro share a look in private conversation and Adam nods.

“I guess it can’t hurt,” Shiro says with a sigh. He meets Lance’s eyes and Lance sees so much pain reflected in his grey irises. His chest twinges and Lance knows without a doubt that this _could_ hurt. “Keith was just a kid when I met him—stealing bread off a cart and covered in dirt, but he had this—I don’t know— _fire_ in his eyes like he was just itching for a fight. Like he could bite your whole hand off and he just wanted you to give him a reason to prove it.

“I just had a feeling about him. I asked him if he ever thought about becoming a knight and he thought I was crazy, but when I told him how squires got three warm meals a day and their very own bed, he changed his tune.” Shiro laughs. “Realized sooner rather than later that he was more bark than bite. Not that he _couldn’t_ bite, mind you, he was the best swordsman out of all the squires—”

“Out of all the knights too, except you,” Adam said.

“He was something. Took a bit for me to figure out, but he was just a scared kid who wanted somewhere to belong. He had a hard time making friends, but the other squires were coming around to him and he was softening up to them. He was only a few months away from being eligible for knighthood but—”

“But what?” Lance asks, his heart aching before he knows the answer.

“I got a letter from Olkarion. It was...a big deal for me. I would have had a higher rank, more men to command and they would have let me take Adam and Keith with me. I’d been working years to commanding a castle like that, so I went to meet with the King and Queen.”

“At the time, the castle was hosting a noble woman from Altea named Lady Aulumaine. While I was away, I assigned Keith to be her personal guard and he’d send letters to update me on the castle. He was only a squire but I think I trusted him as much as Adam at that point.”

There’s a far away look in Shiro’s face filled with anguish and regret.

“I didn’t know about any of it. Not until I was about to accept the King and Queen’s offer and got a letter instead. It said something had happened to Keith. Dark magic and for all intents and purposes, he was gone.”

Lance’s stomach sinks to the floor.

“At first, the others thought he just abandoned his post,” Adam says. “But I knew Keith. I knew he would never do something like that. Something bad must have happened to him.”

“How did you find him?” Lance asks.

“I knew about the entrance to the rose window tower. Keith liked to read there during his time off. He disappeared during the night of a masquerade ball, so most of us assumed…” Adam makes a leading gesture.

“He found company,” Shiro finishes. Oddly, Lance’s cheeks heat at the implication.

“Well, y’know, young handsome man. Talented swordsman. We just _assumed_. I didn’t believe it at first, because of course he was on duty and that was just _not_ like Keith, but I gave him the evening before I started freaking out. Then, the next day, he was nowhere to be found.”

“No one saw where he went?” Lance asks.

“Some saw him be followed by Lady Aulumaine, but he was her guard so no one thought anything of it,” Adam says, looking disgusted. “Most thought Lady Aulumaine _was_ Keith’s company.”

Shiro scoffs.

Adam continues, ignoring Shiro. “When he missed his post the next day, I was positive something was wrong and I searched the whole castle. I should have checked the tower first but I just had a _feeling_ and—I don’t know—I couldn’t face it, but when I was all out of places to search I found him—petrified and completely transformed.” Water gathers in Adam’s eyes and his voice wavers. Lance’s hands ball into fists. “I knew it was Keith as soon as I saw him. His face hadn’t changed that much. And then the inscription…”

“Right, the riddle,” Lance says, remembering the poem at the base of Keith’s podium.

“It was pretty clear he’d been cursed and with some really powerful dark magic. It was the kind of stuff we’d only ever heard about. I immediately sent for Shiro and to the King to request his best mage.”

“It took me weeks to get there,” Shiro says, moving a fallen tuft of hair out of his eyes. “By the time I was…”

“The mage had already declared that the effects were irreversible unless we met the requirements stated in the spell.”

“But how can any spell be that strong?” Lance asks. The only magic Lance has ever known are spells that fade and wither in time, fragile things. Not an all powerful force that holds a whole life in a vice.

“You have to understand,” Shiro starts. “Magic has weakened. It wasn’t like that back then.”

“But even for that time, this was powerful stuff. The kind of spell that comes with a price for the caster,” Adam says darkly.

“It was about when I came back that we noticed Lady Aulumaine was acting... _differently_.”

Lance leans forward. “Different how?”

“She was throwing fits like a child. Chucking things at servants for no reason and yelling at corners like she was fighting with a ghost. We thought she’d caught some sort of fever or was cursed as well,” Shiro says.

“She seemed even worse when Shiro was around. Always going pale and having fainting spells. She felt possessed sometimes.”

“Why was it worse around Shiro?”

Shiro doesn’t meet Lance’s eyes. “I wasn’t exactly subtle about my need for revenge.

I was determined to find whoever did this to Keith. He was like family to me.”

“She must have known,” Adam says. “She just spiraled at one point.”

“And one day, when I was starting to lose all hope that I’d ever get justice for Keith, she

confessed.”

“Lady Aulumaine _confessed_?” Lance asks.

Shiro nods and his brows furrow so tight they leave a crease in the middle of his forehead. “She came to me one night, hanging off of me and begging for forgiveness. She told me how awful Keith was to her, how he brushed her off even though she loved him so. She said she was momentarily filled with passion and rage and it made her do something she deeply regretted.”

Lance’s jaw hangs loose from its hinge and suddenly he’s filled with passion and rage too. Keith’s life was ruined because an entitled royal didn’t get what she wanted and threw a tantrum. “That’s _vile_.”

“Sometimes, I’ll remember that day and shiver,” Shiro says, his eyes darker than they were before. “She acted so guilty, but she also acted like she was only partially to blame. Like Keith had his part in it too.”

“What did you do with her after that?” Lance asks.

“There was a whole long, awful trial and interrogation. We got her to show us where she performed the magic and she told us how she did it,” Shiro says.

“And?”

“There’s a trick door in the fireplace in one of the third floor bedrooms. It led to a lair of sorts. It had lots of dark artifacts, things that were outlawed in Arus because they were corrupted with such malevolent magic.”

“She brought them with her from Altea,” Adam says. “She’d been studying dark magic for years.”

“She cast something called a vice curse on Keith. She basically laid out Keith’s ‘crime’ to her and the spell would take the form of the crime. She thought he was cold so…”

“He got turned to stone,” Lance finishes and Shiro nods. “Did she tell you how to break the curse?”

Adam and Shiro share another look, both of their eyes swimming in grief. Adam’s the first one to speak. “She told us we’d never be able to. That it was Keith who’d have to break it himself and he was incapable. So long as he stayed still, he was incapable.”

A heavy silence fills the small cottage, disrupted only by Echo’s heavy breathing from where she sleeps on the ground. Lance’s chest is made of lead and he can’t open his mouth to speak.

“We kept trying, of course,” Shiro says, wiping briefly at his eye. “We called mages from all over the land to get their opinion and they all agreed that the curse’s contract had to be met to break the spell. There were all kinds of theories about what the actual contract _was_ but it didn’t matter because they all agreed _Keith_ had to do it and Keith can’t do anything. He’s—well, you saw him. You know. Keith hasn’t moved in fifty years.”

Sweat gathers at Lance’s hairline because he knows it isn’t true. Keith has been moving. Keith’s been moving for _weeks_.

Lance looks at the scars of grief still visible on Adam and Shiro’s faces; he knows he’s come into their home and torn out the sutures of a cut that wasn’t healing well to begin with. He wants so badly to tell them, to give them _hope_ but—

But a promise is a promise.

Lance changes the subject. “What happened to the Lady?”

“Executed,” Shiro says, the word bringing him no pleasure. “Using dark magic on a human being is a crime punishable by death. She pleaded guilty. Open and shut.”

“And she just...never told you how to break the curse? Even right before she died?”

Adam shakes his head. “I think a part of her wanted him for herself, even then.”

“That’s... _awful._ I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”

“It was a tough time,” Shiro agrees. “But we’re always thinking of him. He’s always with us.”

Lance wonders, if Keith could cry, would he weep to hear that?

“I’m sure he is,” Lance whispers.

“Would you like to see a sketch of him?” Adam asks.

“You have one?”

Adam nods and gets out of his seat, crossing to the mantle above the fireplace and grabbing a small framed picture off of it. He hands it to Lance and stands next to Shiro, giving his shoulder a supportive squeeze.

Lance takes in the small sketch and his heart leaps to his throat. It’s just a bust but it’s so detailed that Lance is struck by how familiar, yet surprising it is.

Because it’s _Keith_ —same strong jawline, same rounded nose, same sharp cheekbones—but he’s human. He has human ears and human eyes with raven-black hair framing his face.

 _So, this was Keith_. Lance had pieced together that the black-haired man in his dreams was Keith, but now, seeing his face like this, there’s no doubt in his mind. He’s been dreaming of him.

Lance swallows, looking over the long lashes and the detailed shape of his lips. He was so... _so_ …

Lance isn’t sure, but it feels like his windpipe is being crushed.

“One of the squires liked to draw in his free time,” Adam says, gesturing to the sketch. “He made that for Shiro during the trial.”

“We couldn’t take Keith out of the tower because he was so big, so it really helped—having something to remember him by. The _real_ him,” Shiro says.

Lance nods. “It’s beautiful.”

Mesmerized, Lance doesn’t look up from the sketch, wanting so badly to commit every little pencil stroke to memory. He wishes there was a way he could copy it and look at it again. He’s not sure what good that would do, but he feels an odd attachment to the drawing that makes him loathe to let it go.

“Your Grace?” Shiro asks.

“Hm?”

“Do you still think you can break the curse? After everything we’ve told you?”

Lance lowers the picture and meets Shiro’s gaze. The truth is, Lance isn’t sure if he can break it or not. If multiple renowned mages couldn’t figure it out, how can a goofball like him hope to do any better?

Still, it means something that Keith started moving once Lance came into the picture. It means something that he’s been dreaming of what happened to him. Lance might not be smart enough to break the curse, but he also might be the only one who can.

So, Lance does what he always does when he’s not sure—fakes it until he makes it.

“I know I will.”

For a beat, Shiro says nothing and Lance thinks he’s just horribly offended him when he lets out a bark of laughter. “That’s the kind of spirit you can only have when you’re young.”

Lance is so surprised by this reaction that all he can do is laugh too.

“Oh, man, I like you,” Shiro says and he flashes Lance a warm, infectious smile.

“I like you too,” Lance says and he means it.

“Why don’t you take that picture with you? You seem to like it.”

“What?! No, I can’t! I know how special it is to you—”

Shiro raises a hand to silence him. “Consider it a motivator. I think it might do more good with you rather than us mopin’ over it here.”

“Are you sure?” Lance asks, looking at the drawing and then back at Shiro.

“I’m just letting you borrow it. I’ll be wanting it back,” Shiro says, standing up.

Lance follows his lead and presses the frame to his chest. “I’ll take good care of it. I promise.”  

“I’m sure you will.”

They share another understanding smile and Lance gets why this person was so important to Keith.

“Well,” Lance says, picking up his lantern. “I’ve kept you up late enough. Thank you so much. For everything.”

“It’s not exactly our favorite time to entertain, but I don’t mind making an exception for a Prince of Nalquod,” Adam says as they walk him to the door.

When Lance gets to the steps he lights his lantern and turns back to the both of them. “I really can’t thank you enough.”

Shiro puts his strong hand on Lance’s shoulder and there’s a light flickering in Shiro’s eyes, something like hope. “Bring him home to us.”

A swell of pride fills Lance’s chest, a rush of duty and responsibility. He nods.

Shiro lets him go and with one last glance at the little cottage, Lance puts up his hood and rushes back to the castle. 

* * *

The trek back is a much less dramatic affair than the journey into town. Lance is bursting with a newfound purpose and the intense desire to see Keith that it squanders away a lot of the fear he harbored at first.

But while getting _to_ the castle is easy, getting back _in_ is tricky. The best time to sneak in or out is when the guards have shift changes, but these guards won’t switch until dawn at least, so he has to wait for them to make their rounds and pass by them unnoticed.

With his lantern out, Lance crouches low in some nearby bushes, coming in from the other side of the castle since he’ll definitely be seen if he crosses back the same way he came.

When the two guards start their rounds—one circling the east, the other circling the west—Lance follows behind one and takes cover in a bush until the guard is far enough that he’s confident he won’t be able to notice Lance’s movements.

He keeps doing this until they’ve reached the gardens and all he has to do is wait for the guards to take up their original posts so he can make a dash for the kitchen window.

Lance watches as the guards pass each other and make their way to the front again, holding steady until they’re completely out of sight. Once he’s in the clear, he quickly but carefully runs to the window, avoiding twigs and gravel as much as he can.

The relief Lance feels when he pushes the window open and hops back into the kitchen is unparalleled. He’s safe now. Even if Iverson caught him now he’s pretty sure he’d be able to lie his way out of it.

As it is, Iverson has _not_ caught him and the kitchen seems to be clear. He carefully shuts the window behind him and sets course for Keith’s tower.  

 

Lance isn’t even a foot in the door when Keith rushes him and nearly startles him off his feet. “Lance!”

“Let a guy catch his breath, Keith. It’s been a long night,” Lance says, heart pounding.

“You were gone for _hours_. It’ll be sunrise soon.”

“Like I said—long night.”

“So, did you—” Keith starts, looking nervous. “You know…”

Lance’s face softens and he smiles. “I saw Shiro, Keith. He’s doing great. He misses you, though. They both do.”

“He—” Keith’s eyes widen and his face is equal parts confused and overwhelmed. “Wait, _both_?”

“Adam lives with him.”

“Adam’s alive too?” Keith asks and when Lance nods, it’s too much so Keith sits on his pedestal, face buried in his hands. “I can’t believe it. They _live_ together?”

Lance blushes and clears his throat. “Yeah, um, they seemed...happy.”

“That’s...that’s great. Wow, I—I don’t know what to say.”

“That’s okay, you can take your time.”

“No, no. I want to know what happened. Did they tell you anything?” Keith asks, breaking out of his stupor.

Lance leans against their chess table and crosses his arms. “I’ll warn you, it’s a lot.”

“I didn’t exactly think someone cursing me would be a fun story.”

“Just trying to prepare you.”

“Just tell me, Lance.”

So, Lance tells him. He starts at the beginning—tells him Lady Aulumaine fell in love with him, the night of the masquerade when he rejected her, how she was so furious over it she cursed him with a vice spell. As Lance talks, Keith’s face is of building realization, the memories forming in his mind as Lance describes them.

Lance tells him about what happened after too. He tells him how Shiro tried everything to get him back, how Lady Aulumaine confessed and was sentenced to death for her crimes, and lastly, he tells Keith how he has to fulfill the contract of the curse, even though Lady Alumaine said he was incapable of it.

Keith says nothing throughout and just listens, his reactions surprisingly level, but Lance senses a storm underneath.

They’re silent for a long time once Lance finishes. Lance doesn’t want to rush him, so he waits patiently while Keith processes.

When Keith finally speaks, it’s a quiet thing. “That’s what it was?”

“What?”

Keith stands and for the first time in a long time, Lance notices how intimidating he is. His barrel chest is heaving and his claws seem sharper than before. “My entire _life_ was taken from me because I said no?!”

Keith starts pacing, his arms gesticulating violently.

“Keith—”

“I didn’t _do_ anything—”

“I know—”

“I was doing my job! It wasn’t—

“I know, Keith—”

Keith doesn’t hear Lance as he lets out a frustrated growl. “I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone! I didn’t choose this!”

“Hey, calm down—”

“No! No, I won’t!” Keith’s eyes flash and he picks up a wooden chair. “It’s not—” he throws the chair against the wall, “ _FAIR!_ ”  

The chair crashes and splinters, the sound tearing through the air like lightning.

Lance doesn’t think and just reaches for Keith, taking both of his hands in his, trying to tether him back to the ground.

“Keith! Keith, look at me. C’mon, look at me.” Keith looks at him, pain and confusion plain on his face, while his breaths come out in pants. He might be panicking. “You’re right, okay? You’re right. It’s not fair. You didn’t deserve this. You don’t deserve any of it.” Lance squeezes his hands tighter around Keith’s. “But listen, we have something now. I don’t think you were able to break the curse before you woke up, but I think now you _can_.”

“What if you’re wrong? What if I’m stuck like this forever?” Keith asks.

“I’m not gonna let that happen, you hear me? I made a promise to you and to Shiro and I’m not gonna break it. I don’t care what it takes, I’ll get you back to them.”

Keith squeezes Lance’s hands this time, trembling slightly and staring at Lance like he’s an impossible creature. Lance stares back, his body alight with tingling nerves and he has no idea what happens next, the unpredictability of the moment terrifying.

“Lance—” Keith starts, but before can finish, he goes very still and right before Lance’s eyes, his skin transforms back to solid granite, his mouth frozen mid-sentence.

Lance’s eyes widen and for a moment, all he can do is stare at Keith’s stone form. Eventually, he wiggles his hands free of Keith’s grip and looks out the rose window, his heart still fluttering.

The sun is peeking over the horizon, the long night finally over.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhh I hope you enjoyed the second chapter! This is a slow burn but things get amped up in the romance area next chapter *eye emoji* 
> 
> jsyk, even if it takes me a bit to get back to this fic, I will definitely continue so don't worry! I'm coming back to it. This fic specifically takes a long time to write, but i promise ch.3 will come! I gotta write ch.2 of mlb au and then ch. 12 of dark blue and then ch. 3 will be next. 
> 
> Your comments, kudos, and recs are really, really motivating so I would love to hear from you! 
> 
> If you want more updates on how my writing progress is coming and/or want to support me, follow me on twitter! Thanks y'all!
> 
> Links: [Tumblr](http://parchmints.tumblr.com/) | [Twitter](https://twitter.com/parchmints) | [caard](https://parchmints.carrd.co/) | [my klance fics](https://archiveofourown.org/works?utf8=%E2%9C%93&commit=Sort+and+Filter&work_search%5Bsort_column%5D=revised_at&include_work_search%5Brelationship_ids%5D%5B%5D=276512&work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bexcluded_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bcrossover%5D=&work_search%5Bcomplete%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_from%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_to%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_from%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_to%5D=&work_search%5Bquery%5D=&work_search%5Blanguage_id%5D=&user_id=parchmints)

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos, comments, and bookmarks are always really appreciated! Let me know if you want me to keep going :)
> 
> Links: [Tumblr](http://parchmints.tumblr.com/) | [Twitter](https://twitter.com/parchmints) | [caard](https://parchmints.carrd.co/) | [my klance fics](https://archiveofourown.org/works?utf8=%E2%9C%93&commit=Sort+and+Filter&work_search%5Bsort_column%5D=revised_at&include_work_search%5Brelationship_ids%5D%5B%5D=276512&work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bexcluded_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bcrossover%5D=&work_search%5Bcomplete%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_from%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_to%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_from%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_to%5D=&work_search%5Bquery%5D=&work_search%5Blanguage_id%5D=&user_id=parchmints)


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